DIRECTORATE FOR ENGINEERING

National Science Foundation

Committee of Visitors for the

Engineering Education and Centers Division

Triennial Report for the Period FY 2001 -- FY 2003

######### [Table of Contents]{.underline}

> Overview of the Division of Engineering Education and Centers Page 2
>
> Overview of Centers Programs, including: Page 15
>
> Engineering Research Centers Program (ERC)
>
> Earthquake Engineering Research Centers Program (EERC)

Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC)

> Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams (NIRT)
>
> Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NEN)
>
> Industry/University Coop. Research Centers Program (I/UCRC)
>
> State/Industry/Univ. Coop. Research Centers Program (S/I/UCRC)
>
> Engineering Education Programs:
>
> Engineering Education Coalitions Program Page 39
>
> Department-Level Reform of Undergrad Eng'g. Educ. Program Page 47
>
> Engineering Education Program (unsolicited proposals) Page 50
>
> Research Experiences for Undergraduates Sites Program (REU) Page 54
>
> Research Experiences for Teachers Sites Program (RET) Page 58
>
> Partnerships for Innovation Program (PFI) Page 62
>
> Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Inst Program (BBSI) Page 67
>
> Combined Research and Curriculum Devel. Program (CRCD) Page 70
>
> Bridges for Engineering Education Program (BEE) Page 73
>
> Supplementary Information:

Information on the Math and Science Partnership Program of the Page 74

Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR)

Information on Projects Supported by the Information Technology Page 81

Research Program

**DIRECTORATE FOR ENGINEERING**

National Science Foundation

Committee of Visitors for the

Engineering Education and Centers Division

OVERVIEW OF PROGRAMS: FY 2001 -- FY 2003

######### 

## Division Director: Bruce M. Kramer

## Deputy Division Director for Education and Human Resources: Susan C. Kemnitzer

## Deputy Division Director for Engineering Centers: Lynn Preston

Administrative Manager: Esther M. Bolding

Center Manager: Deborah A. Daniels

Engineering Program Evaluation Director: Linda E. Parker

Program Directors: Duane Abata, Win Aung, Vicki Booker, William Butcher,
John C. Hurt, Sharon L. Middledorf, James Mink, Tapan K. Mukherjee, Mary
F. Poats, Sohi Rastegar, Alexander Schwarzkopf, Aspa Zerva

AAAS Fellow: Kevin Sweeney

Support Staff: Gloria Aguilar, Angela Braxton, Tammie Jennings, Gregory
L.

> Misiorek, Sheronda Murphy, Darlene T. Suggs, Susan A.
>
> Watson, William T. Young

**Budget Summary -- FY 2000 to FY 2003**

Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division activities were funded
at levels of \$132.78 in FY 2003, \$116.66 million in FY2002, \$107.48
million in FY 2001, and \$98.40 million in FY 2000, an increase of 34.9%
over the 3-year period.

> ![](media/image1.wmf)

The period is notable for the receipt of an additional \$8.55 million to
provide for increases (largely to increase stipend size) in the
contributions of the Engineering Directorate to NSF-wide education and
human resource development programs (Integrative Graduate Education and
Research Traineeships (IGERT), Interagency Education Research Initiative
(IERI), Graduate Research Fellowships (GRF), and Graduate Teaching
Fellows in K-12 (GK-12)), \$7.33 million in increased funding for
Engineering Research Centers (ERC), and \$15.33 million to support
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Research and Education. The EEC
budget, exclusive of these items, remained relatively stable during the
period, allowing funds from the phase-down of the Engineering Education
Coalitions to fund new initiatives building on their successes.

**History and Role of the Engineering Education and Centers Division**

The Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division
(<http://www.eng.nsf.gov/eec/>) was formed in 1992 by the merger of the
pre-existing Engineering Infrastructure and Engineering Centers
Divisions. The goal of EEC is to enable faculty and teachers to
continuously transform the engineering education and research enterprise
to fulfill changing economic, social and technological needs, in
partnership with government and the private sector. This adaptation is
required to ensure the availability of an abundant, diverse and highly
capable technical workforce. It is achieved through the exposure of
students at all levels to innovation through design and discovery
through research, and through the introduction of new learning theories
and emerging scientific disciplines into engineering curricula. In our
research centers, grade school students and teachers and doctoral
candidates experience the generation of fundamental knowledge, new
invention and commercial products. The stream of advanced technologies
emanating from EEC centers is carried into industry by new generations
of graduating engineers who have learned the skills needed to be
effective leaders in technology innovation in collaboration with the
help of faculty and partners from industry.

Engineering Education and Centers Division (EEC) programs integrate and
complement the research and education portfolios of the other divisions
of ENG. Its programs benefit from a scope encompassing all of
engineering and a scale that both facilitates the incorporation of new
scientific disciplines into engineering and requires rigorous monitoring
and evaluation systems. For example, the Engineering Research Centers
(ERC) Program provides a pathway for disciplinary researchers to
integrate research and educational breakthroughs across disciplines on a
scale that could not be accomplished easily through joint efforts by
individual divisions. Similarly, the Department-Level Reform of
Undergraduate Engineering Education Program, the Research Experiences
for Undergraduates and Teachers Sites Programs, and the other education
and human resource development programs of EEC, address systemic
curriculum and workforce development issues which both encompass and
transcend individual fields and benefit from a centralized management
focus.

EEC has highly developed management and oversight systems and a
full-time evaluation officer, responsible for supporting contracts to
study the effectiveness of EEC and other ENG programs.

**Budget Detail -- FY 2000 to FY 2003 (\$ millions)**

  ------------------- ----- ----------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ------ ----- ----- -----
  **Program**               **FY 2000** **FY 2001**  **FY 2002**  **FY 2003**                     

                                                                                                  

  Engineering               54.00       59.46        53.80        62.74                           
  Research Centers                                                                                
  (ERC)                                                                                           

  Nano Science and                                   6.90         7.20                            
  Eng Ctrs (NSEC)                                                                                 

  N\'scale Interdis                                  4.25         4.83                            
  Res Teams (NIRT)                                                                                

  Nanosimulation                        2.75         1.22         2.35                            
  Groups/Network                                                                                  

  E\'quake Eng              6.03        5.99         5.99         6.00                            
  Research Ctrs                                                                                   
  (EERC)                                                                                          

  Ind/Univ Coop Res         4.99        5.18         5.38         5.79                            
  Ctrs (I/UCRC)                                                                                   

  State/I/UCRCs             0.90        0.90         0.45         0.37                            
  (S/I/UCRC)                                                                                      

  Tax on Centers            0.61        0.60         0.63         0.70                            

  **CENTERS Total**         **66.53**   **74.88**    **78.62**    **89.98**                       

                                                                                                  

  Engineering               10.95       10.37        5.40         1.60                            
  Education                                                                                       
  Coalitions                                                                                      

  Action                    5.10                                                                  
  Agenda/IPA/Panels                                                                               

  Eng Educ Program                      4.48         5.44         7.52                            
  (unsolicited)                                                                                   

  Bridges for Eng                                    2.95         1.60                            
  Education (BEE)                                                                                 

  Department-Level                                   3.00         3.94         see                
  Reform (DLR)                                                                 Note 1             

  Nano Undergrad                                                  0.95                            
  Education (NUE)                                                                                 

  Ctr for Learn &                                    0.88         0.98         see                
  Teach of Eng (CLT)                                                           Note 2             

  Res Exper for             5.77        5.99         6.74         6.91                            
  U\'grads (REU)                                                                                  
  Sites                                                                                           

  Res Exp for                                        1.04         2.51                            
  Teachers (RET)                                                                                  
  Sites                                                                                           

  Comb Res-Curric           3.13        2.59         1.03         1.95                            
  Devel (CRCD)                                                                                    

  Int Grad Ed/Res           2.00        2.98         3.86         5.22                            
  T\'ships (IGERT)                                                                                

  Interagency Ed &                      2.00         2.00         1.99                            
  Res Init (IERI)                                                                                 

  Grad Res                  2.62        2.79         3.45         4.12                            
  Fellowships (GRF)                                                                               

  Grad Teach Fellow         0.70        0.70         1.48         2.54                            
  in K-12 (GK-12)                                                                                 

  Inform Technology                                  0.49         0.50                            
  Research (ITR)                                                                                  

  B\'eng &                                                        0.20         see                
  B\'inf\'tics Sum                                                             Note 3             
  Inst (BBSI)                                                                                     

  Other Education           1.34        0.42         0.00         0.00                            

  Tax on Education          0.26        0.28         0.28         0.27                            

  **EDUCATION Total**       **31.87**   **32.60**    **38.04**    **47.11**    see                
                                                                               Note 4             

                                                                                                  

  **EEC Total**             **98.40**   **107.48**   **116.66**   **132.78**                      

                                                                                                  

  Partnerships for                                                5.00         see                
  Innovation (PFI)                                                             Note 5             

                                                                                                  

  Note 1: \$8.25M in                                                                              
  FY03 including                                                                                  
  \$4.31M from ENG                                                                                
  divisions                                                                                       

  Note 2: EEC                                                                                     
  contribution is                                                                                 
  matched 1:1 by the                                                                              
  Division of                                                                                     
  Undergraduate                                                                                   
  Education of EHR                                                                                

  Note 3: \$1.50M                                                                                 
  including                                                                                       
  cost-sharing of                                                                                 
  \$0.75M from NIH                                                                                
  and \$0.65M from                                                                                
  CISE,MPS,BIO, and                                                                               
  BES                                                                                             

  Note 4: Includes                                                                                
  \$4.31M from ENG                                                                                
  disciplinary                                                                                    
  divisions for                                                                                   
  Department-Level                                                                                
  Reform in FY03                                                                                  

  Note 5: Program                                                                                 
  transferred from                                                                                
  EHR to EEC. Funds                                                                               
  held in the Office                                                                              
  of                                                                                              
  Interdisciplinary                                                                               
  Activities                                                                                      

  of the Office of                                                                                
  the Director                                                                                    
  ------------------- ----- ----------- ------------ ------------ ------------ ------ ----- ----- -----

# Engineering Education Programs

Engineering Education programs were funded at a level of \$31.87 million
in FY 2000, \$32.60 million in FY 2001, \$38.04 million in FY 2002, and
\$42.80 million in FY 2003. Other ENG divisions contributed an
additional \$4.31 million to the Department-Level Reform Program in FY
2003.

The shortage of Americans studying engineering is a National concern.
Simply put, the solution involves attracting more students into
undergraduate and graduate engineering studies and retaining more
students in such programs once they enroll. The landmark 1998 study,
*Women and Men of the Engineering Path*,
(<http://www.erc-assoc.org/nsf/engrg_paths/>) followed 8,395 students
from high school until they graduated from college or reached age 30. It
reported that only 54.3% of men and a shocking 21.3% of women who
indicated that they intended to major in engineering as high school
seniors and subsequently earned more than 10 credits from a 4-year
college obtained engineering degrees. Clearly, we can do better.

[Undergraduate Programs]{.underline}

The Engineering Education Coalitions Program, the flagship program in
engineering education throughout the 1990s,
([**http://www.eng.nsf.gov/eec/coalitions.htm**](http://www.eng.nsf.gov/eec/coalitions.htm))
received \$10.38 million in FY 2001, \$5.4 million in FY 2002, and \$1.6
million in FY 2003, the final funding year of the program. The goal of
the Coalitions Program, as expressed in 1989 in the "Belmont Report,"
was to facilitate and stimulate the improvement of undergraduate
engineering education by having coalitions of institutions develop,
test, adopt and disseminate improvements in engineering education, with
a particular emphasis on increasing retention through the introduction
of design experience early in the curriculum, usually in the freshman
year, and increasing diversity.

The Coalitions, each with 6 to 10 institutions, demonstrated new
approaches that: a) improved the learning process in general, (b)
reduced attrition and the time to graduation, c) increased the
successful participation of under-represented groups in engineering
education, d) improved linkages to K-14 educational institutions, and e)
produced graduates who are better attuned to the needs of the
engineering profession. Their work significantly influenced the new
*Engineering Criteria 2000* accreditation standards established by the
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and formed the
basis for much of the educational change that is occurring in
engineering departments today. Unfortunately, many, if not most, of
these departments are unaware of the role of the coalitions played in
validating the new instructional methods they are currently
implementing.

The Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education (DLR)
Program (<http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf04523>) was
initiated in FY 2002 to extend the transformation of undergraduate
engineering education started by the Coalitions. The program recognizes
that fundamental change in a university occurs at the departmental level
and focuses on both the delivery and content of the core subjects of the
engineering disciplines. This is a significant departure from previous
programs, which either supported the development of elective courses in
the hope that educational innovations would diffuse into the core or
concentrated on the freshman year, where few faculty have strong
interests. These programs were appropriate to their time and played a
key role in generating the remarkably increased interest in engineering
education that we see today in almost every engineering school.

Departments or multiple departments are encouraged to update and
reconstitute elements of the curricula in existing engineering
disciplines or invent elements of completely new curricula for emerging
engineering disciplines or cross-disciplines.  The efforts are expected
to define the interfaces between the new elements and existing programs,
and streamline and update course offerings to make the curriculum both
more attractive and effective by:

-   Introducing emerging knowledge related to information technology,
    bioengineering, microelectronics, microelectromechanical systems
    (MEMS), nanotechnology, product design and realization, advanced
    materials, manufacturing, etc.  

-   Using cognitive theory and latest pedagogical concepts to improve
    learning outcomes. 

-   Replacing legacy materials with improved content emphasizing the
    fundamental, underlying behavior of physical and biological systems
    and the social systems in which they are employed. 

-   Exposing students to the computational methods and design practices
    employed by practicing engineers to solve engineering problems,
    preferably in collaboration with industry leaders in developing
    tools implementing such methods. 

-   Emphasizing critical thinking skills as well as communication and
    interpersonal skills. 

-   Ensuring that the course content as well as pedagogy are sensitive
    to the needs of a diverse student body.

-   Making full use of modern teaching methods, including mentoring,
    team-based and experience-based learning, computer simulation, and
    distance learning. 

-   Incorporating service learning as a means to broaden students\'
    professional skills  and enhance their learning outcomes and
    academic performance, while providing sustained support for
    community service organizations.

Early experience with the DLR indicates that research-active faculty in
vanguard departments now see the need for updating disciplinary
curricula, are interested in implementing the required educational
innovations, and are proposing to the DLR.

The Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE,
<http://www.engr.washington.edu/caee/>), an outstanding collaboration
among leaders in engineering education from the University of Washington
(lead), the Colorado School of Mines, Howard University, Stanford
University, and the University of Minnesota, was funded jointly by EEC
and the Division of undergraduate Education in EHR for a period of 5
years in FY 2002. CAEE is one of 2 Centers for Learning and Teaching in
Higher Education currently funded by the NSF. The CAEE aims to advance
scholarship in engineering teaching and learning, increase the use of
effective pedagogies in engineering classrooms, and strengthen research
and leadership skills of the engineering faculty and the graduate
student community. Preparation of graduate students and postdocs for
faculty positions, faculty development activities for current faculty,
and curriculum developments which involve students (including K-14
students) actively in research and incorporate recent research findings
will be among the activities of the CAEE. Our expectation is that the
CAEE will establish itself both as a coordinating focus for innovation
in engineering education and as a valuable resource for engineering
faculty.

The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site Program, a
cross-cutting NSF program which has been in existence for over 10 years
and is one of our most successful programs to improve and support the
engineering workforce pipeline, was funded at a level of \$5.99 million
in FY 2001 and \$6.91 million in FY 2003. The program aims to develop
undergraduates into independent researchers, rather than dependent
learners. Whereas the typical academic experience separates education
and research, the REU Program provides a research opportunity for
undergraduates that adds a value-added component to their formal
undergraduate education. Based on their feedback, students better
understand what they learn through active discovery in research. The REU
Program has been found to be particularly effective in making women,
underrepresented minorities and those with disabilities aware that
promising careers in engineering research are accessible to them. The
program serves the entire Directorate for Engineering and currently
supports about 90 REU sites, including two international sites, both in
Japan
([http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=10006](http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/reu/list_result.cfm?unitid=10006 )).
Each site consists of a group of six or more undergraduates, who work
with faculty and graduate students on carefully defined projects aligned
with the research programs of the host institution. Students are
accepted from throughout the country and receive stipends and, in some
cases, assistance with housing and travel.

EEC supported the NSF-wide Nanotechnology in Undergraduate Education
(NUE) Program (<http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf03044>)
starting in FY 2003 at a level of \$3 million. The NUE program provides
\$100K grants to enable individuals, departments, programs, or campuses
to integrate nanoscale science and engineering into their curricula. 

EEC contributed approximately \$0.5 million in each of fiscal years 2002
and 2003 to awards made under the NSF-wide Information Technology
Research (ITR) Program that promised to advance the application of
information technologies to engineering education. In FY 2002, the EEC
contribution leveraged a \$2.7 million ITR collaborative project between
Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh
<https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0205301>) to
develop advanced tutoring systems incorporating active models of student
cognition. In FY 2003, our contribution leveraged a \$1.9 million ITR
project to Stevens Institute of Technology
(<https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0326309>) to
integrate and evaluate the effectiveness of a variety of resources for
remote laboratories so that users can run experiments involving multiple
devices in different labs in different locations. Users will be able to
perform collaborative experiments with multiple participants or combine
experiments and simulations in an integrated lab experience using the
system.

No new awards were made under the Combined Research and Curriculum
Development (CRCD) Program after the FY 2001/02 biannual competition.
This program funded the development and dissemination of upper-level
undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses from current research
results. While many excellent elective courses were developed under
CRCD, the decision was made to redeploy CRCD resources to new programs
with more chance to have systemic impact.

[Pre-College Programs]{.underline}

The Research Experiences for Teachers Sites Program was initiated in FY
2002. Modeled after the Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program,
it brings K-12 teachers on-campus in the summer for hands-on experiences
in engineering research labs. Teachers tell us that working with
graduate students and faculty gives them first hand knowledge of
engineering research they can use to motivate students throughout their
teaching careers.

The Bridges for Engineering Education (BEE) Program was started in FY
2002 in response to the IEEE Deans Summit in Baltimore. The Summit
brought together 46 pairs of Deans of Engineering and Education to plan
joint programs for improving the engineering exposure of education
majors and pedagogy of engineering faculty. BEE awarded a total of
approximately 40 \$100K planning grants in FY 2002 and FY 2003 to
proposals jointly sponsored by Deans of Engineering and Education. The
program was suspended in FY 2004 for a number of reasons attributable in
large part to the absence of a mechanism at NSF to fund follow-on
proposals. It had been hoped that NSF's Math and Science Partnership
Program (MSP, <https://www.ehr.nsf.gov/msp/>) would provide a suitable
source for implementation funds, but this very large program proved to
be too ambitious a step up from a \$100K planning grant.

The Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12,
[http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/dge/programs/gk12/](http://www.ehr.nsf.gov/dge/programs/gk12/ ))
Program provides fellowships and instructional training to highly
qualified graduate and advanced undergraduate students in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) to serve in K-12 schools
as resources knowledgeable about both the content and applications of
these disciplines. Academic institutions select Fellows, partner with
school districts to place Fellows in schools, and provide appropriate
training for Fellows, who serve for a minimum of 10 contact hours per
week as resources for teachers in science, engineering, and mathematics
instruction. These internships improve the communication and teaching
skills of the Fellows, enrich learning of K-12 students, provide
professional development opportunities for GK-12 Teachers, and build
partnerships between institutions of higher education and local school
districts. EEC support for this NSF-wide program increased from \$0.70
million in FY 2001 to \$2.54 million in FY 2003.

The goal of the Interagency Education Research Initiative (IERI,
[http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf04553](http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?nsf04553 )),
supported jointly by the National Science Foundation, the Institute of
Education Sciences, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development, is to support scientific research that investigates the
effectiveness of educational interventions in reading, mathematics, and
the sciences as they are implemented in varied school settings with
diverse student populations. The program funds rigorous,
interdisciplinary research on large-scale implementations of promising
educational practices and technologies. IERI-supported projects share
common benchmarks to provide for the accumulation of extensive databases
of reliable and strictly comparable data for study. EEC contributed \$2
million to this NSF-wide program in each of fiscal years 2001-2003.

[Graduate Programs]{.underline}

The Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes Program (BBSI),
[http://bbsi.eeicom.com/](http://bbsi.eeicom.com/ )), a joint program of
the NSF and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and
Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the NIH, seeks to increase the number of young
people considering careers in bioengineering and bioinformatics at the
graduate level and beyond. The program, which provides students with
interdisciplinary bioengineering or bioinformatics research and
education experiences, was started in FY 2003 and leverages \$200K in
EEC funds with \$750K from NIH and \$650K from BES, BIO, CISE, and MPS.

EEC provided \$2.98 million in FY 2001 and \$5.22 million in FY 2003 in
support of the NSF-wide Integrative Graduate Education and Research
Traineeship (IGERT) Program. IGERT sites give groups of Ph.D. students
in science and engineering the multidisciplinary training and the
technical, professional, and personal skills they need to succeed. The
program is expected to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education
that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. Approximately 100
IGERT sites have been established since the program started in FY 1998
and many of these have concentrations that are of interest to
engineering, and particularly emerging or potential future disciplines
of engineering
(<http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/igert/igertprojects.htm>).

EEC also provided \$2.79 million in FY 2001 and \$4.12 million in FY
2003 to the NSF-wide Graduate Research Fellowships Program to enable the
granting of additional graduate research fellowships for women in
engineering. This highly competitive program supports three years of
graduate study leading to research-based masters or doctoral degrees.

[New Program for Unsolicited Engineering Education
Proposals]{.underline}

While most other divisions have multiple programs for the submission of
unsolicited proposals by investigators, EEC has never had such a
program. Therefore, an Engineering Education Program was established in
FY 2001 to accept unsolicited proposals
(<http://www.eng.nsf.gov/eec/engeducationprogram.htm>). This program
promotes a healthy dialog between EEC management, program directors, and
engineering faculty, stimulates the creativity of the community, and
keeps us abreast of current ideas. It was initially funded through the
discontinuation of the Action Agenda for Engineering Curriculum
Innovation solicitation, receiving \$4.48 million in FY 2001 and \$7.52
million in FY 2003.

[New Computer and Engineering Education Grantees Conference]{.underline}

An annual, CISE/EHR/ENG Engineering and Computing Education Grantees
Conference was started in FY 2002 with the leadership of the Deputy
Director for Education and Human Resources of EEC to provide a single
venue for sharing educational ideas across disciplines. The 2003
conference had over 300 attendees and participants included the
assistant directors of CISE, EHR, and ENG, all of the division directors
in the 3 directorates directly involved in education programs, and Bill
Wulf, the President of the National Academy of Engineering.

[Contributions of the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) to Engineering
Education]{.underline}

ERCs and EERCs contribute broadly to education, developing educational
experiences and modules, elective courses, and even pioneering curricula
in their areas of concentration for students from grade school through
undergraduate, graduate and professional education.

Since 1985, ERCs have developed 1494 course modules for new and ongoing
courses, 163 new texts on ERC-related subjects, 119 new
interdisciplinary degree programs or certificates (biotechnology, tissue
engineering, biomaterials engineering, systems, manufacturing,
multimedia, computational engineering, etc.) and innovative multimedia
software on immunology, electronic materials processing, cluster tool
design, and semiconductor manufacturing processes.

A new requirement for on pre-college education supports special programs
to link pre-college students and their teachers to center research and
education programs. The Johns Hopkins and Northeastern University ERCs
served as points of focus for the organization of the RET activities of
investigators on their respective campuses, hosting teachers visiting
their institutions under RET supplements from other NSF divisions and
providing workshops on research methods and coaching in presentation
skills. The Urban Systemic Program of EHR and the ERC Program joined in
funding the Johns Hopkins ERC to develop a large-scale, ERC-based RET
robotics summer camp program based in urban areas. Teachers and guidance
counselors from Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Pittsburgh worked
in the research programs of the partner institutions of the ERC: Johns
Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon, and MIT. The initial program in Baltimore
County was so successful that the school system has decided to fund
additional sites, one in environmental science and the other in
forensics, in 2004 at its own expense. The University of Washington ERC
on Biomaterials received an award to develop long-term linkages with the
African American Academy, a magnet school for African American students
in Seattle.

**Engineering Centers Programs**

Engineering Center Programs were funded at a level of \$89.98 million in
FY 2003, \$78.62 million in FY 2002, \$74.88 million in FY 2001, and
\$66.53 million in FY 2000. In FY 2003, the program supported 19
Engineering Research Centers (ERC), 3 Earthquake Engineering Research
Centers (EERC), 3 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC), 50
Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC), 1
State/University/Industry Cooperative Research Center (S/I/UCRC), a
Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN), and 8 small group
awards, 6 of which are Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams
(NIRT).

[Engineering Research Centers Program]{.underline}

Funding for the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program increased
from \$54.00 million in FY 2000 to \$62.74 million in FY 2003. Average
support for ongoing ERCs (those not in phase-down) increased from \$2.30
million in FY 2001 to \$3.78 million in FY 2003, an increase of 64
percent.

The Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Program, which has expanded from
19 centers in FY 2001 to 22 in FY 2003 (including 3 Earthquake
Engineering Research Centers), was the first "large centers" program at
NSF and has served as a prototype for such centers at the NSF and
worldwide. It emerged from a meeting of leaders from industry and
academe convened by the Office of Science and Technology Policy of the
White House in 1985. These leaders saw the need for a dramatic change in
the academic engineering research and educational culture to help
strengthen the competitive position of industry. Through the National
Academy of Engineering, they recommended that the National Science
Foundation build on the disciplinary depth of an engineering education
by establishing Engineering Research Centers to prepare engineering
graduates to be effective leaders in technological innovation. Today,
ERCs are expected to play critical roles in research, education,
diversity, outreach and industrial collaboration. The absence of a
compelling strategy for achieving demonstrable impact in any one of
these areas is sufficient reason to deny funding to a proposed or
ongoing ERC.

The goal of the ERC Program is to improve the quality of the educational
enterprise and strengthen the competitiveness of industry and the Nation
through research and educational partnerships between universities and
industry. ERCs achieve this goal by providing a technology-focused,
industry-informed, interdisciplinary environment in which students are
educated by, through and in conjunction with active participation in the
performance of cutting-edge engineering research and technology
innovation. The interface between research and education in an ERC is
seamless at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, producing
curriculum innovations derived from the systems focus of the ERC\'s
strategic goals.

This extremely strong program, which has evolved over time to more
effectively attain its goals, took the period evaluated by the COV as a
time to resharpen its focus on cutting edge technologies, become more
closely integrated with the disciplinary divisions, encourage more
risk-taking in proposals, and send a clear message on diversity.

In the FY 2000 ERC competition, the final ERC selection panel told us
that only 2 of the 7 finalists were worthy of funding, even though funds
were available to fund 5 new ERCs. They told us the others were boring,
derivative and playing "not to lose." For the FY 2002/03 ERC
competition, the ERC solicitation was revised to focus on transforming
technologies, simplify regulations and requirements, and expand the
intellectual involvement and increase the autonomy of non-EEC program
directors in the conduct and oversight of the program. These efforts
were reflected in the outstanding set of ERCs funded in FY 2003, a year
in which program directors from the disciplinary divisions of ENG and
other key NSF divisions have assumed lead responsibilities for 10 of 22
ERCs and EERCs, bringing invaluable expertise to their centers.

ERCs are quite diverse in comparison with national averages in
engineering schools. ERC faculty are 15% female and 6% underrepresented
minorities or Hispanic, as compared with 7% and 3% nationally; doctoral
candidates are 23% female and 6% underrepresented minorities or
Hispanic, as compared with 16% and 3% nationally; masters candidates are
25% female and 11% underrepresented minorities or Hispanic, as compared
with 21% and 6% nationally, and; bachelors candidates are 34% female and
20% underrepresented minorities or Hispanic, as compared with 21% and
12% nationally. In spite of the relatively better performance of the
ERCs, there is room for improvement in the involvement of women and
underrepresented minorities in comparison to population demographics in
the U.S. In FY 2003, the Deputy Director of NSF asked the ERC Program to
augment its efforts in diversity to serve as model for NSF and academe.
As a result, a number of requirements were added to the ERC and EERC
cooperative agreements, the centerpiece of which involves the
development of outreach connections with at least one NSF-supported
Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) and one or more
other NSF-supported programs serving underrepresented minority
populations. By way of example, LSAMP institutions currently enroll over
3000 underrepresented minority undergraduate engineering students.

The 3 Earthquake Engineering Research Centers (EERCs), established in
1997 by the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems using the ERC
model, were transferred to EEC for management and oversight in 1999. In
EEC, they benefit from the division's long experience with the ERC
Program. Their budget is managed by the ERC Program but is not
incorporated into it.

### Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers and Groups

\$14.38 million of the \$23.45 million increase in centers funding from
FY 2000 to FY 2003 was to fund nanoscale research under the NSF-wide
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Program. EEC has primary
responsibility for the post-award oversight of 3 of the 6 Nanoscale
Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC) funded in FY 2002 and a number of
Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams (NIRT) funded in FY 2001
through FY 2003. EEC participated in, but did not manage, the
solicitation or the review process that resulted in these awards. The
ERC program was responsible for both selection and post-award oversight
of the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN), an effort to
enable the multiscale and multiphenomenon modeling needed to understand,
control and accelerate the development of new nanoscale processes and
regimes.

[Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers]{.underline}

The Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC) Program
provided \$5.98 million to 50 centers in FY 2001, including \$0.90
million for 3 State/Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers
(S/I/UCRC) and \$6.16 million to 50 centers in FY 2003, including \$0.30
million for 1 S/I/UCRC. A major emphasis for the I/UCRC has been a
transition from single-university centers to a multi-university
institutional configuration.

The program gives the Industrial Advisory Board of each center a
substantial role in setting research priorities and attracts university
faculty as center directors with a strong interest in working with
industry and seeing the tangible results of their research programs. As
a result, the modest funding provide by the NSF massively leverages
non-NSF funding. In FY 2003, each dollar provided by the NSF was matched
by approximately 12 dollars of such funding. By providing innovative
research experiences for talented graduate and undergraduate students,
the I/UCRCs are producing the next generation of scientists and
engineers with a broad, industrially oriented perspective on science and
engineering research and practice. I/UCRCs are expected to become
self-sufficient in 10 years.

Funding for the State/Industry/University component ended in FY 2003.
Initiated by NSF in 1990 at the request of the National Governors'
Association, the program supported economic development-driven research
and development at universities in cooperation with small, medium-sized
and large firms. The program required both states and industry to
individually match NSF funding and encountered technical difficulties in
states that were unable to coordinate their funding cycles and
mechanisms with the proposal process.

[Partnerships for Innovation]{.underline}

The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program was initiated in FY 2000
and transferred to EEC from EHR in FY 2003.

The PFI program emphasizes the establishment of creative partnerships
that forge connections between the discovery of new knowledge and the
learning and innovation processes and draw a diverse spectrum of people
and institutions into NSF activities. In the context of the program,
innovation is defined as the transformation of knowledge into the
products, processes, systems and services that fuel economic
development, create wealth, and generate improvements in the national
standard of living. The goals of the program are to: 

-   Stimulate the transformation of knowledge created by the national
    research and education enterprise into innovations that create new
    wealth, build strong local, regional and national economies, and
    improve the national well-being; 

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-   Broaden the participation of all types of academic institutions and
    all citizens in NSF activities to more fully meet the broad
    workforce needs of the national innovation enterprise; and 

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-   Catalyze or enhance enabling infrastructure necessary to foster and
    sustain innovation in the long-term.

In order to accomplish these goals, proposals may propose any one or
combination of the following activities: (1) research, technology
transfer, and/or commercialization, (2) workforce education and/or
training, and (3) establishing the infrastructure to accomplish or
enable innovation. Proposals should show how all activities being
proposed are related to innovation as the ultimate outcome.  Proposals
should also have a plan to ensure that the innovation can be sustained
in the long term.  Innovation should be the proposed outcome.  Formation
of partnerships should not be proposed as the outcome.

In FY 2003, the program was administered by EEC, but the \$5 million in
funding for the program resided in the Office of Interdisciplinary
Activities of the Office of the Director in FY 2003. It is unknown
whether funding will eventually be transferred to EEC.

[Diversity]{.underline}

One of three outcome goals of NSF's mission is to invest in people: to
develop a diverse, competitive, globally aware and intellectually
engaged workforce of scientists and engineers. Developing a diverse
engineering workforce, including the professoriate, is an overarching
goal of all EEC programs, not just the educational programs. As
discussed in the detailed program reports, the Engineering Education
Coalitions, Partnerships for Innovation (PFI), Research Experiences for
Undergraduates (REU) and Teachers (RET), the Graduate Research
Fellowships (GRF), and the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) Programs
explicitly incorporate a strong emphasis on educating a diverse
engineering workforce.

### Administrative Support of the CAREER Program

In addition to the above-mentioned programs, EEC also administratively
coordinates the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) competition
for the Directorate for Engineering. The disciplinary programs provide
funding for awards.

**Report on Center and Group Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

**Committee of Visitors**

## Overview of the Center and Group Programs Supported by EEC

The Division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) support centers
to provide interdisciplinary teams the opportunity to work in
partnership with industry to address complex research and technology
challenges that require interdisciplinary collaboration, to infuse
interdisciplinary research knowledge into the classroom, and speed
technology transfer. Together they create a diverse cadre of engineering
graduates who are more effective in practice. The groups have
center-like research characteristics, but are much smaller in scale and
scope.

# 

# A. EEC's Responsibility for Centers 

EEC is responsible for the leadership and management of the
**Engineering Research Centers (ERC)** Program, which includes the
Earthquake ERCs and the **Industry/University Cooperative Research
Centers** (I/UCRC) Program.

The ERC Program has the responsibility for award generation and
post-award oversight of ERCs. Since 1999, it also is responsible for the
post-award oversight of the **Earthquake Engineering Research Centers**
(EERC), a set of three centers, based on the ERC model, established by
the Division of Civil and mechanical Systems in 1997. The ERC Program
occasionally funds small-scale ERC-like groups. The ERC Program also is
responsible for the post-award oversight of selected **Nanoscale Science
and Engineering Centers** (NSEC) and selected nanoscale groups, the
**Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams** (NIRT). It is not
responsible for the process of soliciting and reviewing proposals for
these nanoscale efforts but it is responsible for selecting those NSEC
and NIRT finalists in announced competitions that the ERC Program will
support. The ERC program is responsible for the selection and post-award
oversight of the **Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN)**. The
I/UCRC Program is responsible for the generation and post-award
oversight of the **I/UCRCs and the State I/UCRCs**, an offshoot of the
I/UCRC Program that was initiated in 1990 to focus on local economic
development in partnership with states. The State I/UCRC Program was in
the process of phasing out during the COV review period.

**Table 1: EEC Centers, Groups and Networks, FY 2001-2003**

+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| **Center     | **   | *     | **2002 | **2002 | **2003** | **2003  |
| Programs**   | 2001 | *2001 | Bu     | \# s** |          | \# s**  |
|              | Budg | #s**  | dget** |        | **       |         |
|              | et** |       |        |        | Budget** |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| ERCs         | \$5  | 16    | \      | 16     | \$62.19  | 19      |
|              | 8.06 |       | $53.40 |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| Earthquake   | \$   | 3     | \$5.99 | 3      | \$6.00   | 3       |
| ERCs         | 5.99 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| I/UCRCs &    | \$   | 50    | \$5.38 | 47     | \$5.79   | 50      |
|              | 5.18 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| State        | \$   | 3     | \$0.45 | 1      | \$0.37   | 1       |
| I/UCRCs      | 0.90 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| NSECs        | \$   | 0     | \$6.90 | 3      | \$7.20   | 3       |
|              | 0.00 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| Sub Total    | **\  | *     | **\$7  | **70** | **\      | **76**  |
|              | $70. | *72** | 2.12** |        | $81.54** |         |
|              | 13** |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| **Groups**   |      |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| ERC-like     | \$   | 2     | \$0.40 | 1      | \$0.55   | 2       |
| Groups       | 1.40 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| NIRTs        | \$   | 14    | \$4.25 | 5      | \$4.83   | 6       |
|              | 2.75 |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| Sub Total    | **   | *     | **\$   | **6**  | **       | **8**   |
|              | \$4. | *16** | 4.65** |        | \$5.38** |         |
|              | 15** |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| **Networks** |      |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| Network for  | **   | **0** | **\$   | **1**  | **       | **1**   |
| C            | \$0. |       | 1.22** |        | \$2.35** |         |
| omputational | 00** |       |        |        |          |         |
| Na           |      |       |        |        |          |         |
| notechnology |      |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| Tax on       | **   |       | **\$   |        | **       |         |
| Center       | \$0. |       | 0.63** |        | \$0.70** |         |
| Programs     | 60** |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+
| **Grand      | **\  | *     | **\$7  | **77** | **\      | **85**  |
| Total**      | $74. | *88** | 8.62** |        | $89.98** |         |
|              | 88** |       |        |        |          |         |
+--------------+------+-------+--------+--------+----------+---------+

As shown in Table 1, the annual budget for EEC's centers and groups grew
from \$74.88 M in FY 2001 to \$89.98 M in FY 2003 and the number of
centers stayed in the low 70s, allowing growth in support per center for
all but the EERCs.

The program budgets for the ERCs, EERCs, and I/UCRCs are the result of
budgetary requests by EEC to the Directorate for Engineering (ENG).
Program budgets for the NSECs, NCN, and NIRTs are allocated to the ERC
Program budget as a result of budgetary requests by the Nanoscale
Science and Engineering Initiative.

Awards made by the ERC and I/UCRC programs are the result of program
solicitations and review processes managed by these programs. Awards for
the NSECs and NIRTs are made through the ERC Program under solicitation
and review processes managed by the leader of the NSE Initiative.

Lynn Preston, the Deputy Division Director for Centers, is responsible
for the oversight of all these EEC center/group activities and for the
leadership and management of the ERC Program. Alexander Schwarzkopf is
responsible for the direction and management of the Industry/University
Cooperative Research Centers Program; he is assisted by two Program
Officers in EEC and one Program Assistant. For the ERC Program at the
end of FY 2003, there were three program officers in EEC, five from two
other divisions of the Directorate for Engineering, and one from the
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems in CISE that provide
oversight to the ERCs and EERCs. Dr. Tapan Mukherjee, an ERC program
officer in EEC, is responsible for the nanoscale activities in the ERC
Program and he and another EEC program officer provide post-award
oversight to the three NSECs funded by EEC.

# B. EEC-Supported Center Program History and Goals

The EEC-supported center programs complement each other in the ways in
which they focus on research, education, and technology transfer. The
following is a discussion of the history of these programs, their goals,
and outcomes and impacts expectations.

**(1) The Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers Program** was
initiated on an experimental basis in 1973 through the NSF Research
Applied to National Needs Program and became fully operational when it
was transferred to the Directorate for Engineering in 1985. The I/UCRC
Program is a pioneer in establishing effective practices for
industry/university collaboration that have stimulated collaborative
center programs in NSF and around the world. The goal of the I/UCRC
Program is to foster industry/university collaboration in research that
is relevant to industry's near- to medium-term needs. The I/UCRC Program
role is catalytic and encourages highly leveraged industrial support for
centers utilizing the Program's models and protocols. The Program's
financial strategy is to use its funds as a catalyst to gain support
from other parts of NSF, industry, and other government agencies. That
strategy has been successful for many years. The program's budget of
\$5.79 M in FY 2003 was leveraged by a factor of 12 to yield total
support to the I/UCRCs of over \$69 M. The program has supported 101
centers since inception, 51 have graduated from NSF support and 50 were
supported by NSF in 2003. The educational role of these centers is to
prepare graduate students for more effective practice through
involvement in industrially relevant research. There is no requirement
for pre-college or undergraduate student involvement, but many centers
involve undergraduates. The main focus is on building partnerships
through research projects that will lead to an impact on industry in the
near- to medium-term through knowledge advances and new technologies. In
1990, the State I/UCRC Program was formed to use the I/UCRC model to
engage partnerships among the states, industry, and NSF to advance local
economic development. The State I/UCRC Program supported nine centers,
two were phased out during the COV review period; one remains in
operation and is due to phase out at the end of FY 2004.

The outcomes/impacts expectations for the I/UCRCs are:

-   Knowledge and enabling technology advances

-   Two-way knowledge transfer between industry and academe

-   Impacts on industrial practices and technology

-   Producing graduates who are more effective in industrial practice

-   Long-term self-sufficiency after NSF's 10-year term of support
    ceases

The State I/UCRCs have an additional outcome expectation: impact on
local economic development.

During the reporting period, the I/UCRC **program's major goal for
change and improvement** in the program was to speed the transition to a
multi-university institutional configuration. At the end of the
reporting period, 20 of the 50 I/UCRCs functioned in this mode; and, for
new centers, this is a requirement initially or within the start-up
years.

**(2)** Building on the pioneering efforts of the I/UCRC program in
legitimizing a culture of university/industry collaboration in NSF and
academe, the **Engineering Research Centers** Program began operation in
1984. Its goals and mission were designed by a National Academy of
Engineering panel of experts from industry and academe at the request of
the White House. The overarching concern that generated the program was
the need to strengthen the capability of engineering graduates to
contribute to the competitiveness of U.S. industry.

The current goal of the ERC Program is to educate a globally competitive
and diverse engineering workforce in an integrated, interdisciplinary
research environment where academe and industry join in partnership to
advance fundamental engineering knowledge and engineered systems. The
program was the first in NSF to require a focus on engineered systems,
strategic research planning, the integration of engineering and
education, and the involvement of undergraduates in research. Precollege
activities were minimal in the first decade but have increased in scope
and impact since 1994 and became a requirement in FY 2000. The program's
post-award oversight systems (cooperative agreements, data base of
indicators of impact, post-award reporting and site visit review, annual
meetings to share best practices) were used as models for the post-award
oversight systems of the Science and Technology Centers Program and the
NSECs. The new Science of Learning Centers program has adopted the ERC
program's pre-award review process and plans to use its post-award
process when awards are made. The program has supported 41 ERCs starting
with the Class of 1985, 16 have graduated from the Classes of 1985-1990,
and 19 were supported in FY 2003. The average annual ERC Program support
level for ongoing centers, those not in phase down, in FY 2003 was
\$3.78 M, with a range from \$1.7 M (with a \$1.7 M match from the
Semiconductor research Corporation) to \$4.0 M. In FY 1999, the budget
line and responsibility for the support and oversight of the three
Earthquake Engineering Research Centers was transferred to the ERC
program from the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems. EERCs operate
at a fixed level of NSF support of \$2.0 M.

The outcomes/impacts expectations for ERCs and EERCs are:

-   Knowledge advances from fundamental through systems

-   Partnerships with industry and active involvement of industry in
    research and education

-   Two-way knowledge transfer between industry and academe

-   Impacts on industrial practices and technology

-   Leadership, faculty, and student teams that are diverse in gender,
    race, and ethnicity

-   Graduates who are more effective in industrial practice

-   Impacts of ERC research on the curricula (courses, course materials
    required, degree programs optional) at the participating
    institutions

-   Success in attracting pre-college students to engineering; impact on
    the pre-college classroom for ERCs involved hosting a Research
    Experiences for Teachers site

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-   Developing a partnership between academe and industry to sustain the
    ERC during and after NSF's 10-year term of support

During the reporting period the major goals for program improvement and
their impact were:

-   The ERC Program Solicitation (NSF 02-24) required new ERCs to focus
    on engineered systems that would transform current industries or
    practices as opposed to next-generation systems. The change was made
    to encourage more high-risk, and visionary proposal. It had a
    significant impact on the nature of the visions proposed for new
    ERCs as they were more revolutionary and involved move complex
    systems and systems test beds. Four new ERCs focusing on systems
    with the potential to radically alter biomedical implants, catalytic
    process, the prediction of tornadoes, and microscopy for the
    production of nanoscale technology began operation in FY 2003.

-   Increase the ERC budget to increase the number of new ERCs from two
    to four and increase the base support to individual ERCs to enable
    them to accomplish their increasingly demanding and complex
    missions. The ERC Program budget grew by \$7.33 M in FY 2003 and the
    average annual support to ongoing ERCs rose to \$3.78 M

-   The database and reporting systems were revised during the period to
    improve the clarity of the definitions and redefine total support to
    narrow it down to funds that flow through a center's account.

-   New diversity requirements were put in place at the end of FY
    2003requiring strategic planning, greater collaboration with
    minority-serving institutions, and NSF diversity awardees.

-   Expand the involvement of non-EEC PDs in the ERC Program was
    expanded to broaden disciplinary coverage and expose more non-EEC
    PDs to the center mode of operation.

Goals for improvement in the ERC Program for the next three to five
years:

-   Continue to expand the budget to enable the program to support a
    full cadre of 20 ERCs at \$5.0 M each, to be comparable to the
    support for STCs, which have less demanding missions.

-   Monitor the progress made in achieving diverse leadership, faculty,
    and students teams and diverse cadres of graduates.

-   Built strong links with NSF diversity programs to facilitate
    partnerships between their awardees and the ERCs and provide
    supplemental support to ERCs to facilitate the outreach involved in
    these efforts to assure diverse cadres of students and faculty are
    involved in ERC research and education programs.

-   Build on the successful summer research experiences program at the
    Johns Hopkins ERC that involve Native American undergraduate
    students and their faculty in research at the ERC to expand this
    effort to other ERCs.

-   Study the cultural impact of strategic planning in ERCs.

-   Study the current investment climate in industry to determine if the
    ERC mode of industrial collaboration is still optimal.

Funds are allocated to the Engineering Research Centers Program by the
Foundation-wide Nanoscale Science and Engineering Initiative to support
selected Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC), the Network
for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN), and Nanoscale Interdisciplinary
Research Teams (NIRT). The first set of six NSECs was established in FY
2001. The goal of the NSECs is to enable interdisciplinary teams of
researchers to address complex, interdisciplinary challenges in
nanoscale science and engineering research in partnership with industry
and government laboratories. The focus for the research is discovery
through to technological innovation, and some extend that focus to
systems technology. NSECs also integrate research findings into the
curriculum at the college and pre-college levels. EEC supports the 3
NSECs that extend their research strategies to include systems
technology.

The outcome expectations for the NSECs differ from those of ERCs, as
there are greater expectations for discovery, less stringent
expectations for systems impacts, and lesser expectations for a
partnership with industry and an impact on industry because of the basic
nature of the research.

The NIRT activity supports small collaborative groups of three or more
investigators to pursue fundamental research at the nanoscale and
integrate this research into the curriculum. The outcome expectations
for NIRTs are the contribution of fundamental knowledge advances based
on interdisciplinary collaboration, impact on the curriculum, and
contributions to the development of a skilled and diverse workforce and
to an informed public in nanoscience and technology.

In addition, these NSE funds support the Computational Nanotechnology
Network, at Purdue University, which was initiated in FY 2002. Between
FY 2001 and FY 2003, the ERC program supported 25 NIRTs, became
responsible for the support and oversight of three NSECs, and partially
supports a fourth.

## Engineering Research Centers and Earthquake Engineering Research Centers

### Goals, Key Features, and Best Practices

The goal of the Engineering Research Centers Program is to educate a
globally competitive and diverse engineering workforce in an integrated,
interdisciplinary research environment where academe and industry join
in partnership to advance fundamental engineering knowledge and
engineered systems. Both ERCs and EERCs operate to fulfill this program
goal, with EERCs fulfilling an additional goal to work in partnership
with public agencies to mitigate the impact of earthquakes on
structures, life support systems, and the public.

All ERCs/EERCs share the following key features:

-   Long-term, strategic vision for transforming or next-generation
    engineered system and increase the involvement of women and
    underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in engineering and
    scientific workforce;

-   Strategic plan to deploy a diverse and cross-disciplinary team of
    faculty and students to realize the vision;

-   Cross-disciplinary research program to integrate fundamental and
    enabling technology research with proof-of-concept test beds
    designed to test theory in functioning or simulated systems;

-   Education program to team a diverse cadre of undergraduate and
    graduate students in cross-disciplinary, systems focused research
    and integrate research findings into curricular materials for
    students and practitioners;

-   Outreach in research and education to involve diverse cadres of
    college and precollege students and their faculty and teachers in
    the ERC to stimulate interest in engineering research, motivate
    students to study engineering, and infuse engineering concepts into
    the precollege classroom;

-   Partnership with industry and other practitioners to formulate,
    evolve, and strengthen the ERC and speed technology transfer;

-   Institutional commitment to facilitate and foster the culture and
    diversity of the ERC.

Each ERC is supported by an infrastructure that includes a Director and
Deputy Director, Research Thrust leaders, Education Program Leaders,
Industrial Liaison Officer, and an Administrative Director and staff.
The centers rely on the extant laboratories of the associated faculty,
some augment these with interdisciplinary laboratories and facilities
and special equipment. The ERCs operate in partnership with industry
through membership agreements that specify membership terms, fee, and
benefits and intellectual property rights. The ERCs depend upon a
partnership with the chairs of the departments of their associated
faculty and schools for policies and practices that stimulate and reward
interdisciplinary research, the integration of research into the
curriculum, industrial collaboration, and diversity.

As discussed in Section I, the ERC Program is considered the flagship
center program of NSF. Starting in 1984, the ERC Program established a
model for interdisciplinary centers that integrate research and
education in partnership with industry that has been the basis upon
which other center programs have been built in NSF (STCs and NSECs) and
in other Federal agencies (DOD, DOE, NASA) and abroad (Australia, China,
Hungary, Korea to name a few). The ERC program also initiated numerous
pre-award and post-award review and oversight processes that have
rippled throughout the NSF. These include: a multi-tiered review process
including a group of technical panels, site visits, and the inclusion a
"Blue-Ribbon" Panel to provide recommendations for site visits and
awards; cooperative agreements; two stages of renewals (third and sixth
year); a data base of indicators of process and impact; annual meetings
to share best practices. The ERC program is the only program with an
on-line "Best Practices Manual," written by members of the ERC
community.

### B. Numbers of Centers and Groups, Budgets, Program Leverage

At the start of FY 2001, there were 16 ERCs in operation, three EERCs,
and two ERC-like small-scale groups. The three EERCs were supported
throughout the review period. In FY 2001, three ERCs graduated after 11
years of NSF support (Class of 1990-Carnegie Mellon-Data Storage,
Mississippi State, and Montana State.) Support for the ERC at the
University of Hawaii (Class of 1998) ceased in 2003, as a result of its
failure to pass its third-year renewal review. In FY 2003, four new ERCs
were started to bring the total to 19 ERCs supported by the ERC Program.
These new ERCs are:

-   ERC for Extreme Ultraviolet Science and Technology, Colorado State
    University in the lead

-   Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis, University of
    Kansas-Lawrence in the lead

-   ERC for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere, University
    of Massachusetts-Amherst in the lead

-   ERC for Biomimetic MicroElectronic Systems, University of Southern
    California in the lead

Joint support for two of these new ERCs was provided by the EPSCoR
Program (Kansas) and the Division of Atmospheric Sciences (Colorado
State). At the request of the Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems
(CMS), one of the contenders focusing on multiscale computation and
design from Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), was supported for
three years as a scaled-down group by CMS, the Division of Manufacture,
Design and Industrial Innovation, and EEC. Funds from the Math
Initiative were used to support this group. CMS has oversight
responsibility for the project.

Total support to ERCs, excluding groups, grew from \$58.06 M in FY 2001,
fell to \$53.4 M in FY 2002, and rose to \$62.19 M in FY 2003. Within
that support the centers competed for supplements for the purposes shown
in Table 2. Program funds also support the review costs for ERCs, EERCs,
and the NSECs funded by EEC and evaluation.

Support for ERC-like groups began at \$1.4 M in FY 2002 to support 2
groups, one of which in civil engineering received \$1.0 M from EEC. The
other is a group that joins the computational field simulation and
visualization capability of the graduated ERC at Mississippi State
University, with the structural modeling capability at the Pacific
Earthquake Engineering Research Centers and the geotechnical engineering
data sets at Carnegie Mellon University. The purpose is to develop a
visualization of the flow of seismic forces through a region and their
impact on suites of buildings. The effort began in FY 2001 and support
will cease in FY 2004. The final group was started at RPI as discussed
above and support is scheduled to cease in FY 2006.

Table 2: Modes of Allocation of ERC Program and EERC Budgets for ERCs &
EERCs

+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| **Support Mode**    | #            | **FY 2002**    | **FY 2003**    |
|                     | ### FY 2001  |                |                |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| Total support to    | \$58.6 +     | \$53.4 +       | \$62.19 + 6.00 |
| ERC & EERC          | \$5.99       | \$5.99         |                |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| REU\* Supplements   | 00.73        | 00.91          | 00.89          |
| to ERCs & EERCs     |              |                |                |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| RETs\*\*            | 01.27        | 00.25          | 00.72          |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| Edu                 | 03.67        | 01.57          | 01.28          |
| cation/Connectivity |              |                |                |
| Supplements         |              |                |                |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| Evaluation          | 00.58        | 00.41          | 00.18          |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+
| Costs of Reviews    | 00.23        | 00.35          | 00.70          |
+---------------------+--------------+----------------+----------------+

> \* REU = Research Experiences for Undergraduates
>
> \*\* RET = Research Experiences for Teachers

A major increase (\$7.33 M) was provided to the ERC Program late in FY
2003 to increase the number of new ERCs from two to four and to raise
the average level of support to approach \$4.0 per year. Average annual
ERC Program support for ongoing ERCs, those not in phase-down, rose from
\$2.3 M in FY 2001 to \$3.38 M in FY 2002 to \$3.78 M. The range of
average annual ERC program support to fully operational ERCs in their
first to ninth years of operation in FY 2003 was from \$2.50 M to \$4.05
M. This increase in core support is critical to keep the ERC program
competitive in academe, given the complexity of its mission and the fact
that programs with less demanding missions, such as the Science and
Technology Centers, provide \$4.0 M in annual support. The budget
increase was allocated as follows:

-   \$ 3.5 M to the Class of 2003 to complete support for four new ERCs
    instead of two, enabling the support of the new ERC at the
    university of Massachusetts-Amherst and the University of Kansas
    Lawrence;

-   \$ 0.8 M to increase base support to four ERCs to increase outreach
    partnerships with underrepresented minority-serving institutions;
    these are the ERCs at Northeastern, GA Tech (Tissue Engineering,
    Vanderbilt, and the University of Michigan (Reconfigurable
    Manufacturing Systems);

-   \$.22 M to raise the core support to the Vanderbilt ERC as reviews
    have indicated the core mission is too complex to achieve with only
    \$2.0 M;

-   \$2.8 M forward funding of two ERC to release funds into the FY 2004
    base to be used to upgrade base support in FY 2004.

This increase was sustained in FY 2004. However, the increase will not
be fully sustained in the FY 2005 request because \$3.1 M will be
diverted from the ERC core support to support new NSECs.

### C. Generation of New Centers 

During the review period, the ERC program carried out a solicitation for
new centers in the Class of 2003 under Program Solicitation NSF 02-24.
The proposal generation and review process included:

-   Discussions with proposers of potential ERCs by teams of EEC and
    other NSF Program Directors;

-   Submission of letters of intent to facilitate the development of
    review panels;

-   Review of 77 preliminary proposals by seven technical panels,
    developed and managed by PDs from EEC and other Divisions of NSF

    -   Biomedical, Biochemical, and Genetic Engineering: Sohi Rastegar,
        EEC, and Bruce Hamilton and Leon Esterowitz, BES;

    -   Energy, Environment, and Transportation systems: Tapan
        Mukherjee, EEC and Fred Thompson, BES;

    -   Information Technology, Networks, and Communication: Tai Znati,
        CISE and Jim Mink, ECS/EEC;

    -   Infrastructure and Risk Management: Miriam Heller and Priscilla
        Nelson, CMS;

    -   Materials Processing and Manufacturing: Tapan Mukherjee, EEC,
        Delcie Durham, DMII, and Janet Twomey, DMII;

    -   Nanoscale and Microscale Fabrication and Systems: Haris
        Duomanidis, DMII, and Usha Varshney, ECS

    -   Optical and Optoelectronic Systems: Fil Bartoli, ECS and Leon
        Esterowitz BES

-   Invitations to PIs of 16 preliminary proposals to submit full
    proposals;

-   Declination of preliminary proposals not selected for invitation;

-   Formation of the ERC Panel, the panel charged with the review of the
    full proposals for recommendation for site visits and awards;

-   Individual review of each full proposal by selected members of the
    ERC Panel and selected members of the technical panel that had
    reviewed its preliminary proposal;

-   Convening of the ERC Panel to review and discuss each full proposal
    and provide NSF with recommendations for site visits;

-   Seven site visits by teams of external reviewers, one or two members
    of the ERC Panel serving as observers, and NSF staff who facilitated
    the review process, uniform guidance provided to PI on the agenda
    and process of the site visit;

-   Presentations by the site visited and up to three other members of
    their teams before the ERC Panel at their final meeting, each
    submitted a response to issues raised in the site visit report;

-   Review and discussion of the finalists and recommendation for four
    awards;

-   Preparation by EEC of recommendation materials to the Director's
    Review Board;

-   Approval of the awards by the Director;

-   Development of the new cooperative agreement, review by the Division
    of Grants and Agreements, and provision of support.

Each proposer had six months to prepare a preliminary proposal, four
months to prepare a full proposal, at least one month to prepare for a
site visit, and three weeks to prepare a response to the site visit
report and prepare a presentation to the ERC Panel at its final meeting.
Preliminary proposals were submitted on May 15, 2002, full proposals
were submitted on December 3, 2002; seven site visits took place during
march 2003, the final meeting of the ERC Panel was in April 2003, the
Director's Review Board meeting was in July 2003; awards were made in
September 2003.

### D. Post-Award Oversight of the ERCs, EERCs, and Nanoscale Activities Supported by the ERC Program

Post-award oversight systems used by the ERC program to review the ERCs
and the EERCs are as follows:

-   Start-up briefings by Lynn Preston and the lead ERC program Director
    assigned to each new ERC on site at each lead institution at award
    time; briefings include an update on plans by the ERC and guidance
    from NSF on how to build effective ERC key features, the ERC
    program's data base and reporting system, and effective financial
    management. The participants include the leadership team of the ERC,
    the administrative staff, and members of the university's Sponsored
    Research and Accounting offices.

-   Start-up strategic plans submitted by new ERCs within 90 days.

-   The ERC program supports teams of experienced staff from ongoing
    ERCs, the ERC Consultancy, to travel to the new ERCs to provide
    guidance on the development of effective administrative and
    reporting systems and industrial collaboration;

-   Lead ERC PDs, responsible for the oversight and performance review
    of individual ongoing ERC/EERCs who are assisted in this function by
    liaison NSF PDs who provide added disciplinary coverage; an
    evaluation and information systems program officer (Linda Parker),
    and a program manager responsible for supporting human resource
    development efforts in ERCs/EERCs (Mary Poats)

-   Review Materials provided to the ERCs and updated annually as needed
    are:

-   Performance criteria, separately for ERCs and EERCs (excellent and
    poor) for years 1-3. 4-6, and 7-10/11;

-   Post-award Review protocols standard across all ERCs and EERCs;

-   Guidance to PIs for preparation of site visits

-   Guidance to PDs for development and management of the site visit
    team and report writing;

-   Reporting and Database guidelines are provided to the ERCs/EERCs and
    updated annually as needed; a contractor, QRC, provides the ERCs
    with access to data tables through the web for reporting the data
    base and downloading into their annual reports;

-   Financial management guidance for ERCs/EERCs provided by Charles
    Zeigler, BFA, Division of Acquisition and Cost Support, who briefs
    ERCs at the annual meeting and occasionally visits those in need of
    further assistance;

-   Tracking of unobligated balances in the Federal Cash Transaction
    Report by Esther Bolding, Administrative Director, EEC;

-   Center-level post-award performance review including annual site
    visit reviews and renewal reviews in the third and sixth years;

-   Program-level evaluation carried out by contractors;

-   Annual reports to GPRA on outcomes and impacts; selected ERC/EERC
    nuggets are available on the NSF nugget data base; and a full set is
    available on the ERC Achievements Showcase at the erc-assoc.org;

-   Annual Meetings of ERCs to share successes and failures and provide
    feedback to the ERC Program management;

-   ERC-Association WWW site for communication among the ERC/EERCs;

-   Publication of the Best Practices Manual on the web, written by
    members of ongoing ERCs;

```{=html}
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```
-   Special funding initiatives for ERCs to augment support for
    curriculum development, connectivity with other investigators and
    other ERCs, Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) and Research
    Experiences for Undergraduates Programs (REU).

The staffing of the ERC Program at the end of FY 2003 was as follows:

-   **Leader of ERC Program**, responsible for fulfilling Program Goals,
    development and improvement of oversight systems, allocation of the
    budget (Preston-EEC)

-   **Lead ERC Program Directors** responsible for **connectivity**
    within clusters of ERCs: Bioengineering (Lynn Preston standing in
    for Sohi Rastegar[^1]- EEC), Design and Manufacturing
    (Mukherjee-EEC), Earthquake Engineering (Zerva-EEC), Microelectronic
    and Information Technology (Mink-EEC)

-   **Lead ERC Program Directors** responsible for the **oversight** of
    individual ERCs were James Mink, Tapan Mukherjee, and Aspa Zerva
    (EEC); Lawrence Goldberg, Rajinder Khosla, and Fil Bartoli (ECS);
    George Vermont-Bioengineering Expert; Joy Pauschke (CMS); Mary
    Harper (CISE)

-   **Leadership of Nanoscale Activities:** Dr. Tapan Mukherjee (EEC)

-   **Teams of Liaison PDs** from ENG, CISE, GEO assisting in oversight
    of ongoing ERCs and review of new proposals

-   **Precollege Outreach and REUs/RETs for ERCs** (Poats-EEC)

-   **Financial Management Analysis** (Zeigler-BFA & Bolding-EEC)

-   **Reporting, Database, and Program Evaluation** (Parker-EEC)

-   **Proposal and Award Processing** (Suggs, Murphy, Jennings-EEC)

As shown in Table 3, during the reporting period, there were 44 annual
reviews of ERCs, EERCs, and NSECs and 11 renewal reviews of ERCs, and
three of EERCs. During the reporting period, the ERC Program
experimented with eliminating a few annual reviews for ERCs and EERCs
that had done well in their renewal reviews but subsequently determined
that this led to considerable drift. The annual reviews serve an
important management function for the directors of the centers and for
NSF. In some cases, reviews focused on special issues arising from the
prior review were substituted for full-scale annual reviews with
positive results.

The following is a history of the outcome of renewal reviews for ERCs
and EERCs during the review period.

Table 3: History of Annual and Renewal Reviews

  ---------- ----------- ----------- -------------- ------------- ------------ ------------- -----------
  **FY       **\# of     **Annual    **3rd/4th-Yr   **Outcome**   **6th-Yr     **Outcome**   **Total
  01-03**    Centers**   Reviews**   Renewals**                   Renewals**                 Reviews**

  ERCs       17          8           Class of 98    3 renewed     Class of 95  1 renewed, 2  
                                     (3)                          (3)          after         
                                                                               approval of   
                                                                               addenda       

  EERCs      3           3           EERCs (3)      1 renewed, 2                             
                                                    after                                    
                                                    approval of                              
                                                    addenda                                  

  **01       **20**      **11**      **6**                        **3**                      **20**
  Totals**                                                                                   

  ERCs       16          8           Class of 98    2 renewed, 1  Class of 95  2 Renewed , 2 14
                                     (2), Class of  phased out    (1), Class   after         
                                     99 (1)         (Hawaii-98)   of 96 (3)    approval of   
                                                                               addenda       

  EERCs      3           2                                                                   2

  NSECs      3           3                                                                   3

  **02       **22**      **13**      **3**                        **4**                      **20**
  Totals**                                                                                   

  ERCs       19          13          Class of 00    2 renewed     None                       15
                                     (2)                                                     

  EERCs      3           3                                                                   3

  NSECs      3           3                                                                   3

  NCN        1           1                                                                   1

  **03       **26**      **20**      **2**                        **0**                      **22**
  Totals**                                                                                   

  **01-03                **44**      **11**                       **7**                      **62**
  Tot**                                                                                      
  ---------- ----------- ----------- -------------- ------------- ------------ ------------- -----------

Post-award oversight systems for the NSECs are designed by Dr. Ulrich
Strom of the Division of Materials Research and those for the NIRTS are
designed by the leader of the NSE Initiative. The ERC Program carries
out post-award reviews under Dr. Strom's procedures for three NSECs.

### 

### E. Review Community

### 

### The reviewers of ERC/NSE proposals and participants in post-award site visit review teams for the review of ERCs, EERCs, and the NSECs are chosen to assure appropriate engineering and scientific expertise for the proposals/centers under review, experience with interdisciplinary research in academe, industry, or government, experience in engineering education, and diversity in gender, race, and ethnicity. NSF conflict of interest regulations govern the choice. 

Data on the number of reviewers and their diversity of these reviews is
available to the COV in the EEC COV notebooks. These data underrepresent
the number of reviewers used because ERC proposals and actions were not
processed through FastLane until FY 2003. In addition, the data
underreport actual diversity because these data are limited by whether
or not each individual records diversity information in the NSF reviewer
data base. It is not legal for NSF staff to independently determine the
gender, race, or ethnicity of its reviewers.

### Outcomes and Impacts

The COV will receive a document summarizing trends in ERC data during
the reporting period. During this period, the definitions in the data
base were reexamined with the participation of the Administrative
Directors of the ERCs and EERCs to remove ambiguities and tighten some
definitions. Therefore, trend analysis across the three years is not
statistically reliable for some indicators. The major changes in
definitions impacted the following data sets:

1.  Industrial/user involvement was restricted to members, affiliates,
    and contributors, the definitions for each were significantly
    clarified in FY 2002, eliminating more casual relationships with
    industry/practitioners;

2.  Total support was limited in FY 2003 to that provided directly into
    a center's account, eliminating associated project support (support
    for projects that goes directly to an ERC faculty members department
    and not through the center). This change was made at the request of
    the Inspector General as the result of the investigation of one ERC,
    which found that the PI had been reporting support for associated
    projects that were related to the overall goal did not contribute
    directly to the center achieving its goals. This decision is being
    revisited in FY 2004 because it eliminates support for associated
    projects that originated because of the ERC and operate under the
    strategic plan to help it achieve its goals. Examples would be DARPA
    awards to ERC faculty members that support a major test bed or
    sponsored projects from member firms that are arranged between the
    ERC faculty member and a member firm to meet center goals;

3.  Tightened the definition of ERC publication and added multiple
    authors;

4.  Added collection in the data base on the names of participating
    lead, core partner, and outreach institutions.

### G. Diversity in ERCs

As shown in Table 4, ERCs are quite diverse, in comparison with the
averages in engineering for faculty and students, especially regarding
the involvement of women.

![](media/image2.wmf)

Table 4: Diversity in ERCs Compared to National Engineering-Wide
Averages

However, there is room for improvement in the involvement of women and
underrepresented minorities in comparison to population demographics in
the U.S. During FY 2003, the Deputy Director of NSF asked the ERC
Program to augment its efforts in diversity to serve as model for NSF
and academe. As a result, the following requirements were added to the
ERC and EERC cooperative agreements:

-   Execute a diversity strategic plan with goals, milestones, actions,
    and report on progress that exceeds national engineering-wide
    averages at a minimum;

-   Form sustained partnerships with affiliated deans and department
    chairs to enable this performance;

-   Develop outreach connections with predominantly female and
    underrepresented minority institutions as core or outreach partners;

-   Develop outreach connections with at least one NSF-supported Louis
    Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) and one or more
    of the NSF-supported Aliance for Graduate Education of the
    Professoriate (AGEP), Tribal Colleges and Universities Program
    (TCUP), and Centers for Research Excellent in Science and Technology
    (CREST), etc. through REU opportunities and graduate fellowships;

-   Introduce a diverse cadre of precollege students to engineering; and

-   Operate a diversity-oriented REU and RET programs.

Information on non-quantifiable outcomes and impacts is collected
through "nuggets" of outcome and impact submitted with the ERCs' annual
reports. During the reporting period, a "Showcase of Achievements" was
established on the ERC Association web site
(http://www.erc-assoc.org/showcase/index.htm) where the ERC and EERC
nuggets on their impacts on people, ideas, and tools are stored for
public access. The site enables the user to connect directly to the ERC
for further information about a nugget and, in some cases, to access
educational modules and CDs. This site retains key nuggets for several
years and adds new ones as they come in from the centers. NSF also has a
nugget site but it is limited in scope by NSF restrictions on the number
of nuggets approved per program.

### G. Program-Level Evaluations and Findings

[Completed ERC Studies]{.underline}

*The Impact of ERCs on Institutional* *and Cultural Change*, conducted
by SRI International

This study focused on the degree to which the existence of ERCs have
produced or contributed to changes within the host institutions. The
study found that the extent and spread of the institutional and cultural
changes generated by ERC activities depended in part on the number of
faculty and academic units directly involved in a center's activities,
and indirectly on organizational influences that determined the paths
and processes by which changes brought about by the ERC spread to other
faculty and academic units. The ERC Program had major, discernible
impacts on how universities perceived, valued, and organized their
interactions with industry. The impacts on research and education built
upon and helped shape the trend towards increased and closer
collaboration between universities and firms throughout the 1980s, as
reflected in the increased percentage of academic R&D funds supplied by
industry and the spread of university-industry-government cooperative
R&D centers. Impacts were for the most part fairly dispersed,
independent of characteristics of the institutions; but a few
characteristics of ERCs seemed to be somewhat correlated with the degree
of positive impacts. These included high prominence within the
institution of the centers' educational programs, a high degree of
undergraduate involvement, a central campus location of the center as
opposed to distributed space around the institutions, and a high degree
of the institutional administration's interest in and interaction with
the Center.

*Determinants of Cash Support to ERCs,* conducted by Christopher Hill
and Jonathon Tucker, George Mason University

By the mid-90s, ERCs were having difficulty adding new members and
keeping existing members. Center staff attributed this to a reduction in
the availability of unrestricted cash for membership fees, yet observed
that funds for proprietary projects performed by center faculty were
readily available. With major changes in the early 90s in where and how
industrial R&D was conducted, the study examined the extent to which
such external factors as well as programmatic factors contributed to the
observed changes in the funds available for university research. The
main finding was that most of the centers awarded from 1985-91 were in
crucial ways different from most of the centers awarded from 1994-98.
Most of the early centers being what Thomas Kuhn termed "paradigmatic",
while most of the more recent centers were "pre-paradigmatic".
Paradigmatic centers, especially those with a single industry
constituency, typically obtain higher levels of industry cash, as do
paradigmatic centers with multiple-industry constituencies with high
research intensity. In both cases, interested firms can see potential
applications of center research to existing product lines, are used to
funding university research and generally have access to cash for
membership fees. Conversely, pre-paradigmatic ERCs generally have
multiple constituencies across industry and other user organizations,
some of which perform little or no research themselves. Often there were
few if any obvious applications of the center's research to existing
product lines. In the rare instances where they can be envisioned, the
applications are generally be in the form of new product lines and thus
long term. Consequently, investment in pre-paradigmatic ERCs is more of
a risk than is investment in paradigmatic ERCs, making it harder for
centers to obtain even small membership fees

Started in FY 2001-03:

Repeat of the 1995 study: *Impacts on Industry of Interactions with
Engineering Research Centers*, conducted by SRI International

The ERC Program has funded a repetition of a mid-1990s study of the
impacts experienced by firms with memberships in first-generation ERCs
to understand the extent of interactions, how firms make use of what
they have found valuable from these interactions, and the impacts on the
firms stemming from these outcomes of ERC interaction. In the present
study, member firms in second generation ERCs of equivalent maturity to
those in the first study have been surveyed about their involvement in
ERCs and the results within the firms from the ERC involvement. An
additional component was added to examine how centers recruit, work
with, and spin off start-up firms based on center intellectual property.

*Short-term Outcomes and Impacts of the Research Experiences for
Teachers (RET) Program,* conducted by SRI International

This study was initiated in 2002 to examine what K-12 and community
college teachers do while participating in research funded by the
Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Program, how the teachers use
subsequently what they learned in the own classroom, school, district,
etc. The study includes all RET awards made in FY 2001-03 by EEC and two
other divisions in the Directorate for Engineering. The ERC Program has
participated in RET from the beginning. Due to number and scale of RET
awards to ERCs, a significant proportion of RET teachers to be surveyed
in the study will have conducted their research in ERCs. Analysis of
survey data will enable comparisons of activities and curricular results
among RET teachers whose research experience was at an ERC with data
from teachers whose research experience took place elsewhere to see if
the setting for an RET experience influences what teachers do as a
result of their research participation.

##  Industry University Cooperative Research Centers Program

The Industry/University Cooperative research Centers (I/UCRC) Program
began in 1973 the as an experimental program to stimulate
university/industry collaboration, the Research and Development
Incentives (RDI) Program. The most relevant information obtained from 10
experimental tests run by the RDI Programs was that industry would
support a university research center if they had input into determining
a center's research agenda. The I/UCRC Program has built upon this
foundation when it was transferred to the Directorate for Engineering in
1985. Since, it has developed a university- based consortium model with
an Industry Advisory Board made up of funding companies as the key
component. The I/UCRC Program is a seed-funding program that stimulates
university/industry interaction using a university and/or
multi-university center model that performs industrial relevant
research. The I/UCRC Program role is catalytic and encourages highly
leveraged industrial support for centers utilizing the Program's models
and protocols. The I/UCRC Program has been a leader in expanding the
research base of centers. It pioneered multi-disciplinary research to be
able to address industry's broad interests. The I/UCRC Program has been
a leader in forming centers with multi-university partnerships with each
university developing significant industrial support. This is especially
important because no one university can address all of the interests of
an industry. By bringing together a group of universities to address a
broad, but focused research area, a large base of research expertise can
be established. This base of support leads to a center being recognized
as a national asset that can compete internationally with Germany,
Japan, etc.

Currently, the Program has 50 active centers with the involvement of
approximately 90 universities, over 650 industrial and other member
organizations, more than 700 researchers, about 650 graduate students
and nearly 200 undergraduate students. In 2001, the I/UCRC had 50 active
centers, in 2002 there were 49, and in 2003 a total of 50. The I/UCRC
Program has supported 101 centers since its inception with 51 having
graduated from NSF support.

The Program produces four important outcomes: 1.) It trains faculty to
run research centers with other universities involved as partners, 2.)
It educates and trains students utilizing industrial related research
projects of interest to the participating companies, 3.) It produces
industrially relevant research results that can benefit the companies
and help the U.S. remain competitive, and 4.) It creates a university
structure that leads to an environment for long-term partnerships with
industry.

To date the Program continues to be successful, and to quote Dr. Rita
Colwell, the Director of NSF, "I note with pride that the I/UCRC Program
is the oldest and largest multi-member research partnership in the
United States". Over the years, approximately 100 I/UCRCs have been
formed. (Figure 1) More than half of these have moved beyond

NSF support, and the great majority of them are still in existence as
"self-sustaining" center, attesting to the value of the Program.

Another indicator of the success of the Program is shown by the amount
of money each member company invests internally in technology transfer
in applying the results of the research developed in the centers. A
conservative estimate of the total investment by the member companies in
year 2003 is \$80 million.

**A. Selection and Funding of I/UCRC Program Awards**

Letters of Intent (LOI) are solicited from universities twice each year
(Deadlines are December 31 and June 30). These are reviewed by NSF
internally to determine the appropriateness to the announcement, and
that they are not duplicative of existing I/UCRCs. Those universities
submitting LOIs that are approved are invited to submit proposals for a
Planning Grant Award (Deadlines are March 31 and September 30).

An NSF appointed panel reviews the proposals. Those awarded Planning
Grants have 18 months to meet the I/UCRC Program requirements and submit
a proposal to establish an I/UCRC. These proposals are sent by mail for
peer review.

Selection and funding are based on the specifications provided in NSF
01-116. In the initial 5 years of a continuing award, each university
that has a center or research site is funded based on the level of
industry support generated.

a.  \$300,000 or more in industry support, for which a center receives
    \$70,000/yr in NSF funding

b.  \$150,000 to \$300,000 in industry support, for which a center
    receives \$50,000/yr in NSF funding (a minimum of two universities
    is required)

Because multi-university centers have a higher cost of administration,
the lead university of a multi-university center gets an extra
\$10,000/yr in NSF funding for each additional university.

The evaluator studying the industry/university interaction occurring in
each center is included in the above funding.

In the second 5 years of a continuing award following peer review the
funding based on (a) and (b) above are reduced by 50%. The
multi-university administrative cost allowance remains the same. In the
second 5 years of a continuing award, the NSF Program adds funds for the
evaluator of the center.

While announcement NSF 01-116 allows centers to compete to be renewed
under special circumstances (if it incorporates substantial new
intellectual substance and funds are available), the I/UCRC Program
currently is not extending funding beyond the 10-year commitment of NSF
initial funding.

Special projects funded at the centers typically average \$50,000/2 yrs.

#### B. Current Program Status 

Today the Program has 50 centers, 90 participating universities and over
650 industrial and other member organizations. Each center has an
on-site evaluator who administers a standardized evaluation protocol to
study the industry/university interaction occurring in the center
supports each center. More than 700 researchers (primarily faculty),
along with over 650 graduate students and about 200 undergraduate
students carry out the research at these centers, which encompass almost
the entire spectrum of current technological fields.

The Program's budget has grown from \$5.18 M in 2001 to \$5.79 M in FY
2003. (See Table 1) With this modest funding from NSF, the centers have
generated over \$60 M/yr in cash (and considerably more of "in-kind"
support) from other sources to support research programs (Figure 2).

#### C. New and Phased Out Centers

Fourteen of the currently funded centers were initiated during the
period FY 2001 through FY 2003. In addition, consistent with our
emphasis on multi-university centers, seven new university sites were
added to existing Centers. A total of 39 planning grants were awarded to
universities for centers and/or research sites (10 in FY 2001, 10 in FY
2002, and 20 in FY 2003). Fourteen previously funded centers were phased
out during the review period. A total of 51 centers have been phased out
since the program began. (Figure 1)

#### D. Diversity

During the review period, there were 10 directors and/or site directors
from underrepresented groups (8 women, 1 black, and 1 Hispanic). Five
(5) of the 35 evaluators are women. No data were obtained during the
review period related to diversity within the faculty and student
groups, but in the last two years, each center director was required to
formulate a plan to address diversity, and report results in subsequent
years. The 2004 annual reports from the centers will address gender,
race and ethnicity.

**E. Educational Experiences**

Fifteen (15) Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Supplements (2001-6,
2002-2, and 2003-7) were awarded. Sixty-four (64) Supplements were
awarded to support Women, Minority and Disabled Engineering Research
Assistants (2001-24, 2002-12, and 2003-18). These Supplements were
awarded primarily for female undergraduates to help in research projects
at centers.

#### F. Crosscutting NSF and Outside Agency Activities

Each year, many activities are funded that enhance a center and its
research program. For instance, the I/UCRC program will co-fund centers
or university sites with other NSF program funds (See Table 1). During
the review period these additional funds were obtained from CMS, ECS,
CTS, DMII, CISE, INT, and EPSCOR, adding over \$2M to the Program
(2001-14 actions, 2002-29 actions, 2003-19 actions). This co-funding
demonstrates that the centers are performing research that is considered
significant by others in NSF. "TIE" projects are another mechanism that
helps broaden the research base and enhance interdisciplinary and
university interactions. A "TIE" project is a joint research
collaboration approved and funded by at least two centers Industry
Advisory Boards and cost shared by the I/UCRC Program. The Program
funded 5 during the review period (2001-2, 2003-1, 2003-2). Another
outreach program links an I/UCRC with a foreign university or center. In
all cases, NSF funding only supports the I/UCRC part of the
international collaborative project. The foreign activity is generally
funded by a source in that country. In many cases, the International
Program Office co-funds with the I/UCRC Program. A total of 11 projects
with cost sharing at over \$0.8M were awarded during the review period
(2002-3, 2002-4, 2003-4). One of the most important functions the I/UCRC
Program performs for the centers is to accept funding from other
Government Agencies through an Inter-agency Transfer of Funds to fund
research in a designated center. This significantly enhances the funding
of the designated centers (2002-21 actions for \$3.5M, 2002-26 actions
for \$2.4M, and 2003-26 actions for \$2.6M).

Table 5: Program Funding Sources for I/UCRCs

FY 2001-2003

(Thousand Dollars)

  ------------- -------- -------- ---------- -------- ---------- -------- ----------
  **SOURCE OF                     **2001**            **2002**            **2003**
  FUNDING**                                                               

                                                                          

  NSF (I/U/CRC)                   5180                5380                5790

  NSF (Other                      3855.8              1695.3              4112.3
  Programs)                                                               

  Other Federal                   18523.5             22435.5             21193.1
  Agencies                                                                

  Other                           1934.3              340.8               647.4
  Non-Federal                                                             

  Membership                      22957.1             19065.2             18889.5
  Fees                                                                    

  Additional                      2741.1              3431.1              4372.7
  Industry                                                                

  State Support                   4698.8              2709.9              3234.9

  University                      4662.1              3182.9              3437.4
  Support                                                                 

  Other Project                   3923.3              4947.9              8356.2
  Support                                                                 

                                                                          

  Total All                       68496               63008.6             69443.5
  Funding for                                                             
  Program                                                                 

                                                                          

  Leveraging                      13.2                11.7                12.0
  Factor                                                                  
  ------------- -------- -------- ---------- -------- ---------- -------- ----------

#### G. Post Award Oversight Management

Center awards are five-year continuing grants renewed annually. Awards
are renewed based on the following:

Each center award contains the following language:

> "Near the end of each 12 month period, the Program Director and or the
> Division Director of the Engineering Education and Centers Division
> will review the Center on a number of renewal criteria including the
> following: 1) the extent to which the industry/university interaction
> is developing, 2) the extent to which the support base is developing;
> 3) the extent to which a robust research program is developing. If the
> review is satisfactory, the Program Director will recommend support
> for the next period of this continuing award"

Each renewal request must include:

a.  Annual Report

b.  Evaluator Report

c.  Certification of Memberships

I/UCRC staff normally will attend one of the two Industry Advisory Board
Meetings held for each center annually. An annual meeting is held each
January in Washington, D.C. for the I/UCRC Directors and Evaluators. An
additional meeting is held for the evaluators to assess modifying the
evaluation process and scope.

The I/UCRC Program Directors serve as mentors to the center directors
providing advice and counsel in establishing and managing centers. A
comprehensive book of instructions has been published to assist center
directors in all aspects of development and management of a center.

As part of the oversight process, the Program Directors maintain an
active data basis of important indicators of center effectiveness and
annual results. Each center is required to provide data annually
(questionnaire data from faculty and industry) to the evaluator who
maintains the data basis and submits a copy to a master data basis
maintained by a research group at the North Carolina State University.

The evaluators have conducted a special study funded in FY 2003 to
evaluate the effectiveness of center activities on their subsequent
careers. (See report in additional information).

#### H. The I/UCRC Program Staffing

[Full Time Staff:]{.underline}

Alexander Schwarzkopf, Program Manager

Donald R. Price, Program Director (IPA)

Gregory Misiorek, Program Assistant

[Part-time Assistance from other Program Offices:]{.underline}

Tapan Mukherjee, Program Director, ENG/EEC

Glen Larsen, Systems Engineer, ENG/OAD

![](media/image3.wmf)

![](media/image4.wmf) **Figure 2: TOTAL FUNDING BY SOURCE AND YEAR (\$
millions)**

> **FISCAL YEAR**

**State/Industry University Cooperative Research Centers Program**

The State/Industry University Cooperative Research Centers (S/IUCRCs)
Program is being phased out, with two centers currently operating under
no-cost extension. Through proposal solicitations in 1991, 1992 and
1995, NSF funded a total of 13 centers. Final funding increments for the
program, to two remaining centers, were provided in FY-2003. The goal
was to impact local economic development through funding research by
partnering with state science and technology agencies. The program was
established following an understanding reached in 1990 between NSF and
the National Governors\' Association Science and Technology Council of
the States. A S/IUCRC is a University-Based Research Center that
receives base funding of an equal amount from NSF and the State
Government. Industry contributions in cash and in kind are at least
equal to the NSF or State contribution. Maximum funding from NSF for
each center was \$300,000 per year for 8 years.

During FY2001 -- FY2003, the period covered in the COV, the following
three centers remained active:

\(A\) Center for Low Power Electronics, U. of Arizona/Arizona State U.:
EEC-9523338

\(B\) Center for Advanced Friction Studies, Southern Illinois U.:
EEC-9523372

\(C\) Center for Industrial Sensors and Measurements, Ohio State U.:
EEC-9523358

### Nugget

Energy Management for Sensor Networks

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7757>

9523338, Dr. Sarma Vrudhula, Center for Low Power Electronics,
University of Arizona

**Report on Engineering Education Coalitions Program Activities, FY
2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

**Committee of Visitors**

## SUMMARY

Initiated in 1989, the coalitions initiative is targeted at supporting a
small number of major Coalitions of U.S. institutions in a multi-year
effort at a level of \$2-3 million for up to five years, renewal for
another five, to create new models of education that can lead to:

1.  A dramatic increase in both the quality of engineering education and
    the number of degrees awarded in engineering, including those to
    women and underrepresented minorities;

2.  The design, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of new
    structures and approaches affecting all aspects of undergraduate
    engineering education; and

3.  The establishment of new linkages among all types of U.S.
    engineering institutions, large and small.

Notable outcomes during FY2001 -- FY2003 are given below.

**SUCCEED: Southeastern University and College Coalition for Engineering
Education** Cooperative Agreement EEC-9727411

Lead Institution: University of Florida

Partner Institutions: Clemson University, Florida A&M/Florida State
University (FAMU-FSU), Georgia Tech, North Carolina A&T State
University, North Carolina State University, University of North
Carolina-Charlotte, and Virginia Tech

Funding for SUCCEED came to an end in FY2003. The Coalition's strategy
was the development of a model curriculum that combined an integrated
engineering core with the sciences and humanities to be spread and
institutionalized through its membership.

The Coalition's goal of engaging 60% of engineering faculty in faculty
development activities was exceeded. Of this, participation rates for
individual institutions were generally 55% or more. Virginia Tech
established a White Teaching Chair with an endowment of \$700,000.
Faculty mentoring has been institutionalized, notably with Clemson and
Georgia Tech establishing Faculty Mentoring Awards. Richard Felder and
Rebecca Brent are continuing their well-received national and
international efforts on faculty development with their Effective
Teaching Workshop. They have given more than 250 workshops in more than
100 campuses to well over 5,000 faculty members, administrators, faculty
developers and graduate students.

SUCCEED campuses have instituted summer bridge programs for minority
students. Georgia Tech's Challenge program has been expanded with
SUCCEED's support to address the transition issues of transfer students.
A peer-coaching program has been added. The results of a longitudinal
study of Clemson's Math Excellence Workshop have been published. The
study shows statistically significant improvements by students on a
range of outcomes: grades and passing rates in the first math class;
passing rates in subsequent math class; and university graduation rates.

SUCCEED has had strong influence on the freshman year for engineers,
leading to significant changes at each of the member institutions, that
benefit the education of each student in the Coalition -- a number that
amounts to 1/8 of the nation's production of engineers. Courses that
play a role in this include: NC State's Introduction to Engineering
Problem Solving; UNC Charlotte's Introduction to Engineering Practices
and Principles; FAMU-FSU's First Year Program; and Virginia Tech's
Engineering Fundamentals.

The Coalition has had notable impact on multidisciplinary design
efforts. Between 1995 and 2002, the University of Florida's Integrated
Product and Process Design program had more than 46 different sponsors
paying more than \$2.3 million to support 921 students from 10
disciplines engaged in 156 multidisciplinary capstone design projects.
Since 2001, Dave Ollie at NC State has delivered multidisciplinary
design workshops and seminars at over 50 universities and conferences.
Also since 2001, FAMU-FSU College of Engineering's Multidisciplinary
Design Training Clinic (MDTC) has had permanent space and staffing with
state and corporate sponsorship for 46 projects. Sat UNC Charlotte, a
common multidisciplinary course for all departments was created to bring
students from different departments together, a structure that is a
precursor for the creation of a common senior design course.

While ABET's Engineering Criteria will ensure that all credited programs
track and study students outcomes, a part of SUCCEED's model was to
establish college-level outcomes assessment. Toward this end, NC State,
Georgia Tech, and FAMU-FSU have established permanent positions in the
College of Engineering for assessment specialists.

To perpetuate its legacy, the Coalition has placed an emphasis on
securing funding to continue or extend the educational research carried
out with NSF funding. Since its inception, Coalition member institutions
have received more than \$58 million in educational research grants.

**Gateway Engineering Education Coalition**

Cooperative Agreement EEC-9727413

####### Lead Institution: Drexel University

Partner Institutions: Columbia University, Cooper Union, New Jersey
Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Polytechnic University,
and University of South Carolina

Funding for this Coalition expired in FY2004. A primary objective of the
Gateway Coalition was to generate educational innovations to change the
fundamental structure of educational programs, methods of delivery,
student/faculty interaction, the institutions' educational culture, as
well as education program contents. The products and results, including
some full course materials with video and voice as well as the
organizational concepts that have led to the systemic changes, are
freely available for review and download via the Coalition's web
repository at
[http://www.gatewaycoalition.org](http://www.gatewaycoalition.org/).

A major initial objective that was achieved was in bringing Engineering
up-front into the curriculum integrated with the foundations of
mathematics and sciences. Starting with an emphasis on engineering
design as both a driver and motivator, almost all of the Gateway schools
implemented comprehensive design experiences into the freshman year,
allowing almost 4000 first year students per year to gain true insight
into their field of choice and to grasp the foundation mathematics and
sciences in an engineering context. These freshman experiences served as
a catalyst for further curricular and culture changes throughout each
institution. Gateway's curricular innovations span the full
matriculation period of freshman to seniors, in many cases with a
multidisciplinary emphasis, as in systems and control, materials
engineering, environmental engineering, engineering biotechnology,
concurrent engineering and manufacturing, as well as embedding the
issues of ethics and communications within the engineering program. In
addition, modules on such emerging fields as wireless communications,
medical robotics, waste containment, nanotechnology, network security,
genomic engineering, internet technologies, and network security are a
part of the portfolio of available resources and products.

Furthermore, one of Gateway's objectives was to ensure that women and
minorities were included and integrated into the plans for each project.
Evaluation of project institutionalization and all other related
activities included women and minorities' participation in an effort to
mainstream these underrepresented groups throughout all Gateway
initiatives. The result was the establishment of a foundation for
long-term impact and institutionalization that is inclusive and
beneficial to these underrepresented groups. This concept was in keeping
with the view that the Gateway programs themselves, as they were
institutionalized, would be able to provide improvement in the many
factors that lead to better attraction and retention of these
underrepresented groups in engineering education as well as serving the
broader student population. The mentoring programs contributed to a 43%
increase in women graduates and 82% increase in minority graduates, with
concomitant increases in first to second year and second to third year
retention rates.

The Coalition also created a significant culture change on campus, as
evident by more than doubling of the number of junior faculty who taught
first and second year engineering students, and more than tripling of
the number of senior faculty meeting such a goal. Further, there was a
significant increase in the number of upper division courses offered by
interdisciplinary faculty teams as the Coalition pressed its teaming and
interdisciplinary objective. There was a nine-fold increase in the
number of courses that use cooperative learning methods indicating the
success in changing the way engineering was taught as well as what was
taught. Faculty members now recognize the importance of incorporating
communication skills and ethics into the student's program and often
that is now integrated within the engineering context. In the case of
the Gateway Coalition the number of students participating annually in
courses that formally integrate communications skills has increased from
about 500 per year to almost 6000. Finally, as an indicator of culture
change, courses with documented learning objectives increased from 30 to
1605. Indeed, there has been a significant effect by the Coalition on
people, both students and faculty.

Changes in the Gateway engineering educational process led faculty and
students to participate in professional development with a broader set
of educational competencies. For faculty these changes involved the use
of new educational support tools, an increase in understanding how
students learn and how faculty can help students increase their ability
to apply new information, new tools, new skills, and new approaches. For
over 5000 students per year, there are new programs that integrate
issues of communications skills, teaming and interpersonal skills, and
the ethical dilemmas faced by engineers. In keeping with Gateway\'s
fundamental premise, these skill-based activities are imbedded within
the student\'s engineering and scientific educational program to bring
the issues to life in real context rather than as separate programs to
be provided outside of the College of Engineering. For example, close to
400 engineering courses offered by Gateway schools now embed team
experiences into the curricula. To support the development of these
competencies a number of products and publications have been produced
for both internal (i.e. within the Coalition) and external consumption.
There have been almost 500 publications related to the issues of the
Coalition by the participants of the Gateway Coalition and more than 350
products. The products include texts and electronic media with some
combining course modules with voice and video. Several texts are in
commercial production and thus are only identified as to source for
acquisition on the Coalition's web repository. Other products are freely
available to anyone with access to the internet from the web repository
\<[http://www.gatewaycoalition.org](http://www.gatewaycoalition.org/)\>.
Two publications that are oriented to the integration of these multiple
skills, in contrast to focused technical texts are "*Tools and Tactics
of Design"* and *"The Team Developer: An Assessment and Skill Building
Program"*. These have been published by John Wiley and Sons (2001) and
the former is now in preparation for a second printing. Other products
include complete courses or modules that instructors can download and
fit into their program as appropriate. One measure of the success of the
Coalition's programs is not only based on what or how much is
incorporated within the Gateway partner institutions but to what extent
the Coalition's work is respected and influences others. Feedback to the
Coalition leadership has indicated that more than 100 other institutions
have communicated with Gateway partner institutions for the purpose of
adopting or adapting some aspect of the Coalition's work.

![](media/image5.png){width="0.6354166666666666in"
height="0.6354166666666666in"}The impact of the work of the Gateway
Coalition is noted not only by the dissemination or adaptation/adoption
of its products and output but also by how others peers recognize the
uniqueness of the work. A number of participants of the Coalition have
been recognized for their unique contributions to engineering education
by such organizations as the ASEE, IEEE, and the UNESCO International
Center for Engineering Education. Attention is drawn to two awards
specifically. Aspects of early work of the Coalition were recognized by
the Computerworld/Smithsonian Institution Award for contributions to the
"Visionary Use of Information Technology in the Field of Education and
Academia". In addition to the medal presented to the Coalition
P.I./Director, aspects of the work honored are housed in the research
archives of the Smithsonian Institution. In February 2002 the Gateway
P.I./Director was honored as the inaugural recipient of the Bernard M.
Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering.

####### Foundation Coalition 

Cooperative Agreement EEC-0003211

####### Lead Institution: Texas A&M University

Partner Institutions: Arizona State University, Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology, University of Alabama, University of Wisconsin, and
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth

NSF support for the Foundation Coalition came to an end in FY2004. The
concept of the Coalition was thematically based on an integrated
freshman curriculum originally developed at Rose-Hulman Institute of
Technology, combined with similar development efforts at Texas A&M. The
concept was adapted to the Coalition's diverse membership, and was
extended into the upper division. Membership includes a community
college.

The Foundation Coalition (FC) intended to graduate more students, as
well as larger numbers of students from underrepresented groups.
Further, FC intended that every student would graduate with greater
understanding and better skills in applying engineering, science,
mathematics, and technology, so she or he might better create solutions
for a world facing complex socio-technical challenges. Numerous papers,
reports, and charts (most archived at the FC Web site,
\<[http://www.foundationcoalition.org](http://www.foundationcoalition.org/)\>)
indicate that FC pilot curricula, as well as pilot curricula at other
institutions, have achieved these outcomes for their sample populations,
including underrepresented student groups. FC pilot curricula have
demonstrated that the core curricular and pedagogical innovations
advocated by the FC, which included active/cooperative learning, student
teams, technology-enabled education, curriculum integration, and
learning communities, could be assimilated, applied, and deployed at
diverse types of institutions. Deploying institution-wide curricula
using the core ideas underlying the pilot curricula require that the
population most responsible for crafting learning environments, i.e.,
faculty members, teach and learn in different ways. Therefore, the
challenge in institutionalizing innovative pilot curricula is changing
the way faculty members approach teaching. FC partner institutions
confronted this challenge directly and offered numerous approaches to
facilitating faculty change. Development of engineering science
assessment instruments (concept inventories) involved faculty members in
articulating and clarifying what they mean by conceptual understanding.
Over 40 faculty members at 15 institutions were involved in constructing
and administering concept inventories. Many of these faculty members
discovered that the conceptual understanding by students in their
lecture courses did not grow as much as they thought, but that FC
curricular innovations helped to bring about improved conceptual
understanding. FC faculty members offered more than 90 workshops and
seminars to provide numerous faculty members with new skills and
opportunities to apply their knowledge so that they might return to the
classroom with new ideas, strategies, and examples with which they might
renew their teaching.

## 

FC projects and innovations were based on seven core competencies:

*Active and cooperative learning*: increasing student participation in
and ownership of their learning

*Increasing the participation of white women and underrepresented
minorities in engineering*: making the learning environment work for a
more diverse student body, thereby making it a better learning
environment for all students

*Student teams in engineering*: helping students develop their abilities
to work within and lead teams, which requires more than simply assigning
students to group projects

*Technology-enabled learning*: creating learning environments in which
routine access to cutting edge technology is assured and faculty members
revise their learning activities to use the technology

*Continuous improvement through assessment, evaluation, and feedback*:
developing assessment processes to collect data on the impact of changes
to the curricula and learning environments, reaching conclusions about
the efficacy of those changes, and making improvements where indicated

*Curriculum integration and learning communities*: helping students (a)
make connections between various disciplines and between academic
topics, (b) realize the importance of lifelong careers, and (c) build
learning relationships with other students

*Organizational development and change*: making significant curricular
changes requires a complex, thoughtful change model that is based on
research and experience

FC change initiatives employed a wide variety of tools to reach large
numbers of faculty members in diverse states with respect to learning
and teaching. These tools include one-page introductions,
mini-documents, papers, interactive workshops, course modules, and
concept inventories. *One-page introductions* increase awareness of
curricular and pedagogical innovations and provide access to resources
related to these innovations. *Mini-documents* provide in-depth surveys
of research that address many questions that faculty members pose about
adapting these innovations in their classrooms. The *FC Web site*
provides comprehensive access to the documents, *papers*, tools, and
stories that have been compiled across the FC. FC faculty members have
offered over 90 *interactive workshops* to engage faculty members in
deep explorations of innovations advocated by the FC. *Course modules*
are small (1 to 4 class periods) components of instructional material
focused on a specific engineering topic. Most FC course modules have
portions of material that are intended for students (e.g., lecture
notes, in-class exercises) and portions of material that are intended
for faculty (e.g., how the material might be used, how long might a
certain segment take, where in a course might the topic be appropriate).
Faculty members will probably adapt each course module to their
particular courses and teaching styles, but the course modules are
intended to reduce the effort and time that a faculty member would
expend trying an alternative instructional approach. *Engineering
science concept inventory assessment instruments* are designed to assess
conceptual understanding, as opposed to computational facility, of
engineering science disciplines.

Nine institutions either are current or past partners in the FC. Some
institutions choose to work closely with one or more FC partner
institution in renewing their engineering curricula or developing
instructional material for engineering curricula. For example, faculty
members at several institutions are working with FC Workshops
Institutions may host one or more FC workshop or seminar on their
campuses at no expense to the institution.

It has been documented that over 50 institutions have had productive
interfaces with the FC. These include: partner or former partner;
collaborating institution; host of one or more FC workshops; and
participant in one or more focused conferences.

####### Greenfield: The Coalition for New Manufacturing Education 

Cooperative Agreement EEC-9630951

####### Lead Institution: Wayne State University

Partner Institutions: DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Focus:HOPE, Ford
Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, Lawrence Technological
University, Lehigh University, Michigan State University, Society of
Manufacturing Engineers, and University of Detroit-Mercy.

Greenfield is establishing a new paradigm for manufacturing engineering
education, stressing daily, real-world manufacturing experience. In the
process, the program has become the nation's largest producer of
minority graduates in the field of manufacturing engineering.

The impetus for this collaboration is a shared sense among the partners
that most academic programs in manufacturing engineering do not provide
students with actual manufacturing experience. Integrating theoretical
studies with daily practice in fulfilling competitive manufacturing
contracts, Greenfield is reinventing manufacturing engineering education
as a "total immersion" encounter.

Through Focus: HOPE a human and civil rights organization located in
Detroit, Michigan, and its Center for Advanced Technologies (CAT),
Greenfield pilots its manufacturing education program to a student body
that is 95 percent underrepresented minorities. Focus:HOPE has a
non-profit manufacturing arm with the dual function of
![](media/image7.jpeg){width="3.375in"
height="1.7395833333333333in"}supplying precision machined components
and assemblies to the automotive industry as well as providing
reality-based learning for engineering candidates. Over 110 minority
youth from the Focus: HOPE Center for Advanced Technologies have earned
a degree in the Greenfield university programs, and over 300 have been
enrolled.

Greenfield is developing new, innovative web-based tools to expand
learning and enhance problem-solving skills in a real production
environment. Among the web-enabled learning resources are engineering
case studies.

Linking academic learning with real-world experiences motivates students
and significantly impacts depth of learning. The Greenfield Coalition
has developed case studies to support its programs in manufacturing
engineering and technology. Engineering cases embed learning within
real-world situations. Learning is not organized topically, as in a
textbook, but is embedded within a problem-solving scenario. The learner
defines a problem given the symptoms, explores a set of resources to
improve performance and recommends a course of action.

One of the Greenfield manufacturing cases targets the issue of
dimensional integrity of a pulley manufactured for an automotive OEM.
Product requirements are specified and the production process is
documented. The learner is provided with a set of resources which
include: interviews with key personnel, videos and animations of a key
boring process, process sheets, scrap reports, as well as information
documenting cutting fluids, and fixtures. Not all of the information
provided is of equal value in constructing a solution, so learning
includes problem solving in unstructured environments.

The candidates at the Focus:HOPE Center for Advanced Technologies worked
with the development team to create this case based upon real production
issues.

Among the new materials developed by Greenfield is a set of learning
activities developed by *Taylan Altan* and his colleagues at *Ohio State
University* targeting Forming Technologies. The Greenfield course has
been designed using sound educational pedagogy that motivates learning,
describes relevance of the learning to real-world problems, and
stimulates active and cooperative learning.

Using Gagne's nine external events of instruction, each learning session
maximizes the motivation for learning, adds relevance to the content and
fosters an active learning atmosphere. In this course dealing with
forming technologies, learning is framed as a discovery experience
(constructivism). Fundamental engineering concepts are introduced. Here
the learner is experimentally determining the impact of a parameter on
the failure of a specimen in a tensile test. In another interactive
simulated experiment, students examine the 'spring-back' phenomenon key
to forming processes. This procedure of observation and learner-framed
explanation creates a deeper learning experience than when the material
is presented in a simple lecture format. These materials in Forming
Technologies are used in the educational programs at the Focus:HOPE
Center for Advanced Technologies, Ohio State University, and are being
disseminated to other manufacturing programs.

**Report on Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering
Education**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

######## The Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education is a joint program between ENG and EHR that focuses on PEOPLE as the primary NSF Indicator. Planning and Implementation Awards are made to enable departmental units to reformulate, streamline and update engineering degree programs, develop new curricula for emerging disciplines and meet emerging workforce and educational needs of US industry. The Goal Indicator is to support innovative research on learning, teaching and mentoring that provides a scientific basis for improving science, technology, engineering and mathematics education at all levels.

########  

Examples of awardee results reported during the period under review are
given below. Some common themes are evident from these successful
programs. These common themes are:

(a) **vertical integration of learning** using the TekBot Platform of
    Learning (0230679), the Pillars of Chemical Engineering (0342713)
    and vertically integrated design projects (0230659);

(b) **incorporation of emerging technologies** (mechanical engineering
    in 0343154 and aerospace / mechanical engineering in 0230698);

(c) **integration of real world engineering practice** (electrical
    engineering in 0230695, computer engineering in 0230734,
    bioengineering in 0343283 and industrial engineering in 0229093)

**Award No: 0230679 - "ECE Education Redesign using a Platform for
Learning"**

This project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education using the innovative concept of a
Platform of Learning. Beginning in the freshmen year, electrical and
computer engineering students create and build on this Platform as they
progress through the curriculum so that subject areas become connected
and students have a context for their learning similar to the way
engineers practice their profession. The specific platform used is their
individual robot called a TekBot. Initial assessment of the program
indicated that the materials and instruction contributed to a
significant improvement in learning outcomes as well as the sense of
community and innovation.

**Award No: 0342713 - "The Pillars of Chemical Engineering: A Block
Scheduled Curriculum"**

This project, which is in the implementation phase, seeks to provide a
scientific base for improving undergraduate engineering education using
the innovative concept of Block Scheduling. A curriculum built of six
"pillar" courses allows chemical engineering students, starting from
their freshmen year, to learn to integrate core knowledge and develop
systems thinking. Initial assessment suggests that this approach allows
instructors to better address multi-scale and multidisciplinary topics
and to be more flexible in addressing diverse learning styles of
students.

**Award No: 0230659 - "Planning Grant to Establish the Center for
Engineering Learning"**

This planning project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education using the concept of vertically
integrated design projects. Preliminary assessment of outcomes shows
that this approach is consistent with published research on learning.
This approach has enabled the department to incorporate necessary
elements of long-term success while allowing needed reform to the
curriculum.

**Award No: 0343154 - "Redefining Mechanical Engineering -- Systemic
Reform of the Mechanical Engineering Program at City College"**

This project, which is in the implementation phase, seeks to provide a
scientific base for improving undergraduate engineering education by
introducing new teaching strategies and by incorporating emerging
technologies into the curriculum. Strong partnership with the
professional society, ASME, enables the introduction of the latest
technologies into the mechanical engineering curriculum. Preliminary
assessment indicates that the strategy is achieving results,
particularly with respect to the retention of students.

**Award No: 0230698 -- "Integrating Knowledge Capture and Knowledge
Reuse in Engineering Undergraduate Curriculum"**

This planning project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education by adapting emerging technologies
into a professional curriculum to be developed by a well-established
team of industry and academic partners. Several courses in a wide range
of disciplines have been developed and these have resulted in engaging
these communities for enhancing student learning through active
project-oriented education.

**Award No: 0230695 - "Reforming Education by Enhancing Relevance: the
REAL LIFE model"**

This planning project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education by integration of lectures and
laboratories and by providing real-world relevance to the college
experiences of electrical and computer engineering students. Initial
assessment of learning outcomes shows large gains in the higher levels
of Blooms Taxonomy and, in particular, the "lifelong learning" skills of
students. Students appear to be developing the hallmarks of independent
learners.

## 

**Award No: 0230734 - "Engineering Informatics -- An Integrated Approach
Toward Analysis and Design"**

This planning project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education by bringing the best engineering
practices involving computer integration into the undergraduate
engineering program. Students create solutions to real-word problems
recruited from outside the classroom. Faculty use distance education to
engage students in community colleges as well.

**Award No: 0343283 - "Establishing a Cross-Disciplinary Bioengineering
Program with a Technical Entrepreneurship Focus"**

This project, which is in the implementation phase, seeks to provide a
scientific base for improving undergraduate engineering education using
non-traditional and experiential learning approaches. Undergraduate
bioengineering students work in cross disciplinary teams with business
and liberal arts majors to plan, market and evaluate the technical
feasibility of new products and processes for industry/hospital
sponsored projects. Initial assessment shows that the beneficial effects
of this approach are a consequence of the student satisfaction in
meeting real needs.

**Award No: 0229093 - Collaborative Research -- A Four-Campus
Implementation of Industrial Engineering Curricular Reform Integrating a
Problem Set and Flows Framework with Master**

This planning project seeks to provide a scientific base for improving
undergraduate engineering education using a process that actively
engages practicing engineering professionals and faculty members in the
planning, implementation and assessment of industrial engineering
curriculum reform. A critical component of this program is the large
scale engagement of 27 universities across the nation in this process.
Several of these departments have already started implementation of this
approach.

**Report on Engineering Education Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

[Summary]{.underline}

*Why does the program exist?*

The Engineering Education program --the unsolicited program\-- has the
goal to increase the quantity and quality of U.S. citizens who earn BS
degrees in engineering.

*What is the strategy of the program?*

We welcome unsolicited proposals from faculty with cutting edge new
ideas for undergraduate engineering education improvements. The call is
meant to be very open so as to allow the most risky and innovative ideas
to come forward.

*How do the elements of the program (if multiple) tie together?*

There are not multiple elements.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

Virtually all of NSF's education programs are tightly specified. This
one encourages innovative ideas without such strictures, thereby
encouraging innovation and experimentation.

*How did the program partner with entities outside EEC?*

The review panels are managed with the help of program officers from the
other research divisions of the Engineering Directorate. As a team, we
work together to enlist reviewers and recommend proposals. As a result
dozens of program officers have had the opportunity to learn about
education activities and to participate in judging which should be
funded. Beyond the Engineering Directorate, we co-review and co-fund
proposals with the Directorates for Social and Behavioral Sciences,
Computer and Information Science and Engineering, Geological Sciences,
and Education and Human Resources.

*What worked particularly well and how do we know?*

This program serves as an incubator to get innovative project started,
which then gain momentum and are successful in getting larger support
from other parts of NSF, its own institution and industry. One prime
example is the EPICS program at Purdue, which has grown to over 15
universities. We in turn went on to start the Department Level Reform
Program and the Service Learning Program.

*What changed during the 3 years or what will we do differently in the
future and why?*

We are growing more sophisticated in what we seek from grantees. We
require excellent projects, which are designed using the best
educational research. We require more robust assessments of those
projects. We ask them to contribute to student learning but also
contribute to our knowledge of how students learn. We require more
frequent and more complete reporting of results. These changes are
driven by our desire to add to the knowledge base of how students learn
and how faculty can improve that learning process.

[Participation in cross cutting and NSF wide activities]{.underline}

See above.

[New Solicitations]{.underline}

None.

[Method of merit review]{.underline}

We review all proposals in panels using the Fastlane, Interactive Panel
System.

[Nuggets]{.underline}

Here are selected results from the unsolicited engineering education
program. Let me give you the rationale for why I choose these projects
to discuss in the annual report. Dr. Stephanie Adams\' project is a
CAREER award. It is important for you to know that we are building
capacity for research in engineering education by funding this type of
award. With the advent of engineering education departments (ex. Purdue
and VA Tech), we need to create a funding stream for faculty who choose
this pathway. The NAE and MIT awards are included because they will have
very broad and significant impact on the directions of engineering
education, and they show we are looking for big ideas from top
institutions.

Title: [**CAREER: Designing Effective Teams in the Engineering Classroom
for the Enhancement of
Learning**](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0237135)

Award Number: 0237135

Program Manager: Sue Kemnitzer

Start Date: February 15, 2003

Expires: January 31, 2008

Expected Total Amount: \$587568

Investigator: Stephanie G. Adams sadams2@unl.edu

Institution: U of Nebraska-Lincoln

The research objective of this CAREER award is to develop, test and
validate a model of effective teaming for the engineering classroom. The
goals of the model are to facilitate teamwork in the classroom; to
measure individual growth when learning a subject and learning how to
work in a team; and to measure teamwork effectiveness. The primary goal
of the education component of the project is redesign engineering
management courses; develop a new cross-listed undergraduate/graduate
course on the principles of group/team dynamics; develop and implement
faculty training workshops on the application of the model; and the
development of interactive web training modules to provide ongoing
tutorials on problems and issues encountered by teams.

The PI has analyzed the nature of teamwork in the engineering classroom,
developed a measure to assess teamwork and use that measure to
investigate methods of promoting team development. Pennsylvania State
University, the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance
(NCIIA) and the PI.s own University of Nebraska-Lincoln will participate
in the beta testing.

Title: [**NAE Center for Scholarship in Engineering
Education**](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0242554)

Award Number: 0242554

Program Manager: Sue Kemnitzer

Start Date: April 15, 2003

Expires: March 31, 2005

Expected Total Amount: \$199999

Investigator: Patricia F. Mead pmead@nae.edu (Original Principal
Investigator)

Norman Fortenberry (Current PI)

Institution: National Academy of Engineering

This project planned the development of the National Academy of
Engineering\'s Center for Scholarship in Engineering Education. The
center brings outstanding visiting scholars and educators together to
conduct high-quality research as a basis for nationwide reform of
engineering education. The goal of center is to create a climate of
continuous improvement in engineering education by increasing the body
of knowledge on teaching and learning, cultivating a respected community
scholars of teaching and learning in engineering, and promoting the
dissemination and adoption of this knowledge. The center: 1) sponsors
National Academy of Engineering education fellows selected for
outstanding research in engineering education; 2) educates the
engineering community about value of educational research; and 3)
supports the dissemination of effective innovations in engineering
education. The first calass of fellows began work in Fall of 2003.

Title: [**Invention
Study**](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0313685)

Award Number: 0313685

Program Manager: Sue Kemnitzer

Start Date: June 1, 2003

Expires: November 30, 2004

Expected Total Amount: \$99571

Investigator: Merton C. Flemings flemings@mit.edu

Institution: MIT

A series of workshops were held during 2003 and early 2004, to gather
inventors, educators, economists, psychologists, engineers, cognitive
scientists, and lawyers, to discuss how to stimulate invention. In
Spring 2004, there will be an Invention Assembly at the National Academy
of Engineering to release and further discuss the recommendations, which
flow from these workshops. The workshops and Assembly have two basic
goals. They aim, through a scholarly, interdisciplinary approach to: 1)
shed new light on invention, and on the special kind of creativity
involved in inventing, and in doing so to place special emphasis on
implications for education of young people; 2) develop specific findings
and recommendations of value to policy makers in their efforts to
encourage inventiveness in young people, and to enhance the climate for
invention and the value of inventions to society.

**Report on Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites**

## Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

*Why does the program exist?*

The REU Site program seeks to encourage undergraduate students who are
U.S. citizens or permanent residents to consider research-related career
paths as a viable career option. The program seeks to impact the
nation's need to increase the number of U.S. citizens and permanent
residents -- in particular those from population groups underrepresented
in engineering -- that are engaged in research-related careers that
require an advanced degree.

*What is the strategy of the program?*

The strategy of the program is to provide a short-term, research
experience to a cohort of students that enables them to learn and
develop professionally and to be mentored by the research community with
the hope that the experience provided will encourage the participating
students to pursue graduate-level studies in preparation for a
research-related career in academe, government, or the private sector.

*How do the elements of the program (if multiple) tie together?*

There are not multiple elements.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

The REU Site program is a major contributor to the NSF goal of
developing a diverse, internationally competitive, and globally-engaged
scientific and engineering workforce. It draws on the integration of
research and education to attract a diversified pool of talented
students into research-related careers.

*How did the program partner with entities outside EEC?*

The program partnered with other ENG divisions in the panel review
process. The review panel moderators included program directors from
BES, CMS, CTS, DMII, and ECS. In addition to this partnership with the
Engineering disciplinary directorates to manage the review panel
process, the program has partnered with other divisions in other
directorates in the agency to co-review and co-fund proposals. The
program has received additional funding to support REU Sites from the
Office of International Science & Engineering (INT), the Directorate for
Biological Sciences (BIO), the Directorate for Computer and Information
Sciences and Engineering (CISE), the Directorate for Geological Sciences
(GEO), the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), and
the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences.

In addition, the program has successfully partnered with other
government agencies in support of the program. The Department of Defense
Basic Research has transferred funds to EEC to support additional REU
Sites and to co-fund REU Sites with EEC.

*What worked particularly well and how do we know?*

There is a very strong interest in the REU Site program as evidenced by
the number of applications received for the limited number of slots
available at each site. REU Site directors receive approximately ten
applications for every one slot available. This demand by students is
evidence that the program in general is effectively gaining the
attention of U.S. students and permanent residents as they consider
opportunities in which to participate for the summer.

*What changed during the 3 years or what will we do differently in the
future and why?*

We have already begun to do a number of things differently this fiscal
year to highlight the potential of the REU Site program to significantly
impact the nation's need to increase the number and diversity of U.S.
citizens and permanent residents engaged in research-related careers.
During the three previous fiscal years, an average of 84 proposals each
year were reviewed. The number of proposals reviewed in the current
fiscal year 2004 competition (121 proposals) was approximately 44%
larger than the previous three years. This significant increase was a
result of increased, focused outreach efforts. In the future, we will
continue this outreach effort as a way to obtain a more diverse pool of
proposals from which a more diverse portfolio of REU Sites can be
established. A more diverse portfolio of REU Sites -- in terms of
geographic location, type and size of institution, and research topic
areas -- offers the potential to attract students with a variety of
interests and from a variety of personal backgrounds. In addition,
increased outreach efforts can serve to stimulate the interest of the
academic community to focus on mentoring students in a way that
encourages more students to pursue graduate-level studies leading to
research-related careers.

We will also explore ways in which to leverage federal funds with other
organizations and federal agencies to increase the number of students
that can be supported through the REU Site program. The interest in the
REU Site program among students is extremely high. A typical ten-week
summer REU Site program for ten student participants receives one
hundred applications. The recent partnership with the Department of
Defense Basic Research represents a way to collaborate with another
federal agency to leverage federal tax dollars and resources to
accomplish goals of mutual interest and increase the number of student
participants in the program. Additional opportunities to leverage
resources may exist with the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST).

*Participation in cross cutting and NSF wide activities.*

The EEC REU Site program participates in an agency-wide working group
led by the Education and Human Resources Directorate. This working group
discusses guidelines for the program and concurs on the language to be
used in the agency-wide REU program solicitation announcement.

*New Solicitations*

The program solicitation is reviewed and discussed on a yearly basis by
the agency-wide REU Site working group. A new program solicitation is
edited (as needed) and approved by the working group on a yearly basis
to clarify the purpose of the program and deadline dates for each
directorate.

*Method of merit review.*

We review all proposals in panels using the Fastlane, Interactive Panel
System.

*Nuggets*

**Undergraduates Explore the World of Research in Infrastructure
Innovation, Assessment, and Management (PI Shirley Dyke, Washington
University)**

Civil engineers are the builders of the infrastructure of the world.
Today's civil engineers face challenges such as enhancing structures to
withstand natural and man-made hazards, effective utilization of
advanced materials to increase safety, appropriate assessment and
management of structures and highways, and the innovative use of
composite materials to improve durability. U.S. students from diverse
backgrounds spent the summer at Washington University learning and doing
research on understanding the vulnerability of buildings to severe
events such as earthquakes or terrorist attacks. Students spent ten
weeks working on state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary research projects
in infrastructure innovations, assessment, and management. Details on
the variety of projects and activities in which the students were
involved can be found on the [Summer 2003 Undergraduate Research
Experience at Washington
University](http://wusceel.cive.wustl.edu/reu/2003/home.html) program
webpage.

*This work is notable because:* This summer research experience program
served to show students the importance of civil engineering research and
provided an opportunity for U.S. undergraduate students to seriously
consider a research-related career as a viable career opportunity.
(Award No. EEC-9820506)

**Summer Research Program Allows Undergraduate Students To Explore
Innovations in Biomaterials (PI Karen Burg, Clemson University)**

Successful innovation in biomaterials relies on fundamentals of
materials engineering, biology, and bioengineering. Undergraduate
students spent ten weeks in the summer at Clemson University - a leader
in biomaterials research - learning how to do research in this
interdisciplinary field. Students not only developed technical expertise
in biomaterials development, but also learned how to work well with
others who may have different scientific backgrounds.

Students worked as members of research teams on topics that ranged from
the design of mechanical testing fixtures for artificial joint analysis
to the development of encapsulation systems for veterinary use.

*This work is notable because:*\
This student summer research program, though focused on science and
engineering, prepared the undergraduate student participants to think
creatively, to communicate clearly, and to write effectively \-- thus
preparing each student to be more competitive and productive in future
academic and research endeavors.

*This work involves innovative, risky, or multi-disciplinary research:\
*Research projects of the students involved the fields of animal and
veterinary science, biochemistry, biology, and mechanical engineering,
and thus required cross-disciplinary research collaboration. (Award No.
EEC-0139624)

**Report on Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) Sites**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

*Why does the program exist?*

The Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) activity was initiated in
the NSF Directorate for Engineering (ENG) in FY 2001 to involve middle
and high school teachers in engineering research in order to bring
knowledge of engineering and technological innovation to the pre-college
classroom. Encouraging active participation of teachers in NSF projects
is an excellent way to reach broadly into the teacher talent pool of the
U.S. and to encourage more K-12 students to pursue engineering studies
by increasing their understanding of engineering, as conveyed by their
teachers.

The RET program aims to build long-term collaborative relationships
between both in-service and pre-service K-12 teachers; community college
faculty, and the engineering research community in institutions of
higher learning; support the active participation of these teachers and
future teachers in research and education projects funded by NSF/ENG;
facilitate professional development of K-12 teachers and community
college faculty through strengthened partnerships between institutions
of higher education and local school districts; and encourage
researchers to build mutually rewarding partnerships with teachers.

*What is the strategy of the program to achieve the objectives?*

The RET program objectives are achieved by building partnerships between
teachers and engineering researchers in engineering research
laboratories through site awards and supplements to on-going research
and education projects funded by all divisions of ENG. ENG strongly
encourages all of its grantees, including grantees from the Small
Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and the Small Business Technology
Research (STTR) programs, to make special efforts to identify talented
teachers for participation in this RET opportunity.

ENG also strongly encourages the use of RET supplements and sites to
enable K-12 teachers of science, mathematics, and engineering and
community college faculty to participate in on-going Research
Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

A request for funding of an RET supplement is made under an existing
NSF/ENG award or within a proposal for a new or renewal NSF/ENG award.
An RET Site project must involve teachers and community college faculty
in an ongoing NSF/ENG supported research project.

The RET Program also fills the gap between precollege programs focused
on students to infuse engineering concepts into the precollege
classroom. The other major program with this goal in ENG is the
Engineering Research Center (ERC) Program.

*What went particularly well and how do we know?*

Participating NSF/ENG Principal Investigators (PIs) gained first hand
experience on the issues related to transferring math, science and
engineering concepts back into the pre-college classroom. PIs, through
the RET program, began to develop real and practical programs that would
be effective in the precollege program. They were also able to meet
other PIs as part of the sites and begin to collaborate together on
their own research.\
\
Participating K-12 teachers/community college faculty gained more self
confidence in many areas including research / laboratory methodology,
grant writing capability to gain more resources for their own
classrooms, and enhanced their math and science skills in context of
research. They also developed collegial relationships with other
teachers, worked with pedagogical experts to translate their experiences
back into the classrooms, and worked with other teachers from their
districts to implement school and district-wide changes.\
\
NSF staff closely involved with the RET Program formed working
partnerships and collaborations with different learning communities
spanning K-14 education. In addition, NSF is better able to leverage its
investments in research through a more meaningful connection to
education and precollege.

The programs across the country were able to communicate and share
information through the regional workshops. This allowed the new sites
to learn from previous efforts. Also, common assessment instruments were
used in several cases, as were lecturers from institutions like JHU on
such topics as communications.\
\
For sites, where several faculty also had supplements at institutions
that had sites, resources could be leveraged through common
administrative infrastructure, assessment protocols, field trips, and
lecturers. This minimized the time faculty spent on such activities and
maximized the time available to spend with the teachers on the research
activities.

In the RET sites across the country, faculty and teachers enjoyed
spending time with each other in the laboratory and learned from each
other. In many cases, faculty whom had never been exposed to the K-12
environment, other than through their own children, started thinking
about issues of K-12 education.\
\
One aspect of the program that was not expected \-- the partnerships
that have been formed around the country between not only the University
and the school districts, but also many other constituents of STEM
education. For example, the Summit for Engineering Education K- 16
(SEEK) initiative is a direct result of the partnerships. It initially
began with JHU/LMU and Cal State LA with Baltimore County and AAAS. It
has now expanded to include NAE, ITEA (International Technology
Education Association), and many other groups across the country. The
issues that the SEEK - 16 group is addressing is technology and
engineering literacy. The NSF RET program was the springboard.\
\
Another example is the interagency luncheon and follow-up to include an
expanded effort with Native Americans. Discussion of possible
partnerships with NASA, USDA and others are in the works.

*How did the program partner with entities outside of EEC?*

Interest and participation in the RET activity has been steadily growing
in part due to activities such as three NSF/RET Regional Workshops which
have been co-sponsored by the ENG, MPS, BIO, and CISE Directorates.
These workshops which were led by the Engineering Research Centers (ERC)
brought NSF grantees and mathematics/science K-12 teachers and community
college faculty together to discuss opportunities for teachers/faculty
to participate in research experiences with NSF funded principal
investigators. The first workshop held in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore
area was co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins University for Computer
Integrated Surgical Systems Technologies (CISST) and Howard Community
College in February 2002; the second was co-hosted by the University of
Southern California, Integrated Media Systems Center (IMSC), California
Institute of Technology, Center for Neuromorphic Systems Engineering
(CNSE), and Loyola Marymount University in March 2003; and the third was
co-hosted by Northwestern University, VaNTH Engineering Research Center
in Bioengineering Educational Technologies and Illinois Institute of
Technology in September 2003. As a result of these workshops more than
300 teachers and community college faculty members have participated in
a summer/academic year research experience with NSF funded researchers.

In FY 2002 the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR)
provided \$1 million in co-funding to four ENG/RET Site projects that
were awarded to institutions that partnered with inner city schools,
particularly those supported through the NSF Urban Systemic Program.

*What changed during the three years or what will we do differently in
the future and why?*

The ENG/RET Program was initiated in FY 2001 as a pilot effort and
provided support for supplements to on-going NSF/ENG projects and to
groups of K-12 in-service and/or preserves teachers at nine Engineering
Research Centers (ERC). This successful pilot effort with the ERCs was
the catalyst for launching the annual ENG Directorate-wide RET Site
competition in FY 2002, which resulted in six RET Site awards, four of
which obtained co-funding from the EHR Directorate, as mentioned above.
In FY 2003 the program was expanded further to include and encourage the
participation of community college faculty in on going research and
education activities funded by ENG. Five awards were made.

Discussions are planned with NASA, Department of Agriculture, and NIH
about possible RET program collaborations.

### Information on issuance of new solicitations and guidelines

Current program announcement NSF 03-554 is in revision. Projected
issuance date June 2004.

### Methods of merit review used

All RET supplements are reviewed by the cognizant ENG Program Director.
All RET Site proposals are reviewed using the NSF Fastlane Interactive
Panel System.

### Nuggets

RET Plus: Program Linked to Urban Schools

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7689>

0227577, Ms. Claire Duggan, Northeastern University

High School Chemistry Teacher Brings Laboratory Experience to Her
Classroom

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7920>

0087696, Dr. Charles Glatz, Iowa State University

Real-Time Embedded Systems Research and Curriculum Development

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7746>

9980321, Dr. Mitchell Neilsen, Kansas State University

**Report on Partnerships for Innovation (PFI)**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

### Summary

The Partnerships for Innovation program is intended to forge connections
between new knowledge created in the discovery process to learning and
innovation, while broadening the participation of people and
institutions in NSF activities. For the purposes of this program,
innovation is defined as the transformation of knowledge into the
products, processes, systems and services that fuel economic
development, create wealth and generate improvements in the national
standard of living. The goals of the program are to: 

-   Stimulate the transformation of knowledge created by the national
    research and education enterprise into innovations that create new
    wealth, build strong local, regional and national economies, and
    improve the national well-being; 

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-   Broaden the participation of all types of academic institutions and
    all citizens in NSF activities to more fully meet the broad
    workforce needs of the national innovation enterprise; and 

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-   Catalyze or enhance enabling infrastructure necessary to foster and
    sustain innovation in the long-term.

In order to accomplish these goals, proposals may propose any one or
combination of the following activities: (1) research, technology
transfer, and/or commercialization, (2) workforce education and/or
training, and (3) establishing the infrastructure to accomplish or
enable innovation. Proposals should show how all activities being
proposed are related to innovation as the ultimate outcome.  Proposals
should also have a plan to ensure that the innovation can be sustained
in the long term.  Innovation should be the proposed outcome.  Formation
of partnerships should not be proposed as the outcome.

The PFI Program is Cross-disciplinary and covers every directorate and
Polar Programs. The various directorates have co-funded grants with the
PFI Program every year since the program's inception in FY 2000. The
program was formed with input from an NSF-wide Working Group. The
Working Group developed a five-year plan that has been followed as far
as financial resources allowed. The program was mandated by the Senate
in FY 2000. One of the major goals of the program as mandated by the
Senate was to broaden the participation of smaller institutions in NSF
funding. A major goal for the program defined by NSF was promotion of
innovation. Thus, the program has a dual purpose. Management of these
two, often seemingly divergent, goals requires proper management of the
review process to ensure excellence in the proposals being funded.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) did not like the program at
first and deleted funding from the NSF Budget request every year until
FY 2003. OMB was concerned that the program could become an entitlement
program, and grow out of control because the Congress could be lobbied
to increase the budgets in areas that the Administration did not
support. They were also concerned that Innovation could lead to economic
development, which was the mandate for the Department of Commerce, not
NSF. This created management difficulties where the need for long-range
planning and funding were needed. The budget has been around the \$10
million mark every year until 2003 when it was reduced to \$5 million, a
step that was necessary to get it into the annual budget request at OMB.
In FY 2003, OMB allowed the program to be in the budget at the low
funding level, having observed that it was not showing signs of
entitlement or runaway growth in Congress. This reduction in FY 2003
created a one-year blip at a time when the quality and number of
proposals were at an all-time high. The budget was restored to \$10
million in FY 2004.

From FY 2000 to FY 2003, the program resided in the Directorate for
Education and Human Resources, and the support staff function was
provided by the Office of Integrative Activities. Coordination between
these two organizational entities required delicate management. The
program was transferred to the Directorate for Engineering in FY
February 2003, but the budget was placed in the Integrative Activities
portion of the budget request. Once again, the program administration
was separated from the fiscal organizational unit. The administrative
support is provided by the EEC Division where the Program Director
resides.

No funds are set aside for small institutions, and the balance of
excellent proposals stays at roughly 25 % large institutions, 25 %
medium sized institutions, and 50% medium-small institutions. In
virtually every case, the large institutions partner with medium-small
institutions. The demographics of the partnerships that have been funded
follow.

[Program Description]{.underline}

-   Initiated in FY 2000, PFI connects new knowledge created in the
    discovery process to learning and innovation, while broadening the
    participation of people and institutions in NSF activities; PFI
    activities include research, technology transfer, building
    infrastructure for innovation, and workforce education and training.

-   Two goals of PFI are to (a) contribute to local, regional and
    national economic development; and (b) sustain long-term innovation.

-   Partnerships must include academic institutions and private sector
    organizations, and are encouraged to include state/local
    governments.

-   PFI encourages the participation of institutions that serve (a)
    groups currently underrepresented in the STEM workforce, and (b)
    regions and sectors not yet fully participating in the innovation
    enterprise.

-   Awards have been made to support 73 partnership projects in 37
    states and Puerto Rico, including awards to 5 HBCUs.

-   Partnerships include (a) 325 private sector firms, (b) 129 colleges
    and universities, (c) 35 community colleges, (d) 60
    local/regional/state government agencies, (e) 20 federal
    agencies/national laboratories, (f) 35 venture capital funds, (g) 55
    private foundations and associations, and (h) 16 minority,
    minority-serving, and Native American institutions.

[Impact]{.underline}

Cost-sharing by the partners (FY 2000-2004) totaled \$12 million (27%).

-   69 of the 73 partnerships include academic institutions historically
    receiving little annual support from NSF.

-   A national NSF Innovation Workshop in June 2001 was attended by 150
    representatives from 35 states.

(Dollars in Millions)

+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| FY 2000   | FY 2001   | FY 2002   | FY 2003   | FY 2004   | FY 2005   |
| Actual    | Actual    | Actual    | Actual    |           |           |
|           |           |           |           | Estimate  | Request   |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
| \$3.91    | \$14.58   | \$10.97   | \$4.97    | \$9.94    | \$10.00   |
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+

The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program will be funded at \$10.0
million in FY 2004, an increase of \$5.0 million over the FY 2003
Request. The PFI program builds innovation capacity by linking new
knowledge and knowledge-rich workforce to economic growth and other
societal benefits through the partnership endeavors of a diverse range
of colleges and universities, private sector firms, local, state, and
federal government entities and other organizations.

The quality of the excellent proposals continues to increase each year
according to the reviewers. The panels recommend between 18 and 25
proposals each year as "Highly Recommended" for funding. Between 2000
and 2002 more than 90 % of these were funded. Proposals recommended
lower than Highly Recommended have never been funded. In FY 2003, with a
budget of \$5 million, only 15 of the 28 Highly Recommended proposals
were funded. Ten Highly Recommended proposals were carried over to FY
2004 for possible funding with FY 2004 funds.

No proposals seeking a second round of funding were rated in the Highly
Recommended category in FY 2002. Two of the ones declined in FY 2002
were rated as Highly Recommended in FY 2003. One was funded and one was
carried over. Hence, the concern by OMB over entitlement has been shown
to be ill founded. Of the 25-30 proposals due to terminate in 2002 and
2003, only 5-6 have submitted a final report. The remainder have been
granted no-cost extensions. The issue is the under-estimation by
academic persons of the time required to form working partnerships with
the private sector. However, the efficacy of the partnerships has been
excellent. Examples of accomplishments/outcomes are provided in the
report.

### Participation in Cross-Cutting and NSF-wide programs

The proposals received and funded cover every directorate at NSF plus
the Office of Polar Programs. Reviewers have been provided from every
directorate. Co-funding is provided by several directorates and EPSCoR.
Program Directors from several directorates participate in the
management of panels every year. The program is truly cross-directorate
in content and operation.

### New Solicitation

A solicitation is posted each year on the NSF web under crosscutting
programs. The solicitation changes slightly each year. The major change
has been the requirement for references in the technology field of the
proposal and in the field of innovation/entrepreneurship.

### Methods of Merit Review

Review of proposals is accomplished by interdisciplinary panels.
Reviewers are recommended by the various directorates. The proposals are
reviewed according to functionality rather than scientific or
technological discipline. The panels cover research, technology
transfer, and commercialization; workforce education and training; and
infrastructure. Reviewers cover every phase of innovation from research
professors, business/management, venture capitalists, small
businesspersons, major corporation representatives, retired
businesspersons, academic administrators, educators, community college
faculty and staff, etc. Reviewers are told to review the proposals in
the context of what they are proposing for the region or sector of the
institution. Demographics of the panels follow.

### Review Process

The program solicitation for the Partnerships for Innovation Program
(NSF-0082) was posted on the NSF homepage on March 30, 2000. The
following deadlines were listed in the solicitation: Non-binding e-mail
Notice of Intent to Submit a Proposal-June 1, 2000; Proposal
Deadline-July 6, 2000. One hundred thirty (130) proposals were received.
Proposals were submitted via Fastlane only. Sixty-three panelists were
recruited bases on nominations by program directors from the various
directorates and programs in NSF. The institutional affiliation of the
panelist follows:

Large Universities 11 21%

Small Universities/Colleges 17 32%

Community Colleges/Technical Schools 7 13%

Small Business 11 21%

Lagre Business/Industry 5 9%

Government 2 4%

The panels included 12 women and 4 members of underrepresented minority
groups.

Each Panel was charged to review each proposal, discuss the proposal and
the review, produce a Summary of Panel Discussion, Rate each proposal
Highly Recommended for funding (HR), Recommended for funding if
sufficient funds are available (R) or Not Recommended for funding (NR),
and sign a summary spreadsheet with the ratings from the panel. A copy
of the verbatim mail reviews, signed Summary of Panel Discussion, and
sign spreadsheet is filed in the respective proposal files. A copy of
the Minutes of Panel Proceedings is also filed in each proposal file.

The panelists were divided into 6 separate panels, each of which
reviewed a mixture of proposals from different types of institutions.
Panelists on each panel were assigned to write reviews of each proposal
considered by that panel in advance of the panel meeting. Each Panel was
charged to review each proposal, discuss the proposal and the written
reviews, produce a Summary of Panel Discussion, rate each proposal
Highly Recommended for funding (HR), Recommended for funding if
sufficient funds are available (R) or Not Recommended for funding (NR),
and sign a summary spreadsheet with the ratings from the panel.

The panels recommended a total of 22 proposals as Highly Recommended for
funding; 40 proposals as Recommended for funding if sufficient funds are
available; and 50 proposals as Not Recommended for funding. Twelve of
the Highly Recommended proposals were funded. Later three more were
funded with FY 2003 funds.

[Nuggets]{.underline}

A few Nuggets follow. They are not separated by year since the nature of
partnerships between academe and the private sector requires long-term
effort before some of the activities can provide outcomes.

Technology Applications and Learning Toward Professional Achievement

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7753&app=any>

0125272 and 0332690, Dr. Herb Schroeder, University of Alaska, Anchorage

The Upstate Alliance for Innovation

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7752&app=any>

0090569, Dr. Donald Boyd, Rochester Institute of Technology

From Intellectual Capital to Successful Business Enterprises

[http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7750](http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7750%0D)

[0125516, Dr. Marek Urban, University of Southern
Mississippi](http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7750%0D)

Development and Commercialization of Advanced Wood-Based Composites in
Maine

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7749&app=any>

0125343, Dr. Habib Dagher, University of Maine

**Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes (BBSI)**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

*Why does the program exist?*

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) have identified bioengineering and bioinformatics as
essential underpinning fields in the 21st century. The agencies are
collaborating on an important high profile effort to meet the
anticipated bioengineering and bioinformatics human resource needs.

The purpose of this high value program is to provide students majoring
in the biological sciences, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics,
and physical sciences with well planned interdisciplinary bioengineering
or bioinformatics research and education experiences in very active
\'Summer Institutes\', thereby increasing the number of young people
considering careers in bioengineering and bioinformatics at the graduate
level and beyond. 

*What is the strategy of the program to achieve the objectives?*

Annually, every Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institute will
provide a combined total of approximately 15 undergraduate and graduate
students with:

\(1\) didactic training experiences combining high quality formal course
work with state-of-the art research seminars to provide students with an
interdisciplinary foundation in the fundamentals of bioengineering or
bioinformatics and biological and/or clinical sciences, as required; and

\(2\) associated interdisciplinary bioengineering and bioinformatics
research experiences that feature high quality interaction of students
with faculty and/or other research mentors and access to appropriate
facilities and professional development opportunities.

Students will be encouraged to participate in an Institute for up to two
consecutive summer programs.

The Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institutes will reach
broadly into the national student talent pool as they seek to attract a
diverse group of U.S. citizens and permanent residents to careers in
bioengineering or bioinformatics. Fifty percent or more of the student
participants in each Summer Institute will come from outside the host
institution and NSF and NIH are particularly interested in ensuring the
full participation of women, under-represented minorities
(African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Native-Americans, Alaskan
natives, Pacific-Islanders) and persons with disabilities in this
program.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

Current summer training programs at NSF in general do not allow seniors
or graduate students. A goal of the BBSI program is to actively advance
students to graduate/research careers (in bioengineering and
bioinformatics). So the program was designed to allow both
undergraduates, including seniors, and early graduate students and it
was designed to be a 2-summer sequence to allow for such continuity. In
the first year over 15% of the overall participants (or 20% of
undergraduate participants) were senior undergraduates. Of the total
participants over 30% indicated they would return for the second summer.

*What went particularly well and how do we know?*

Coordination with NIH went particularly well, partly due to involvement
of all stakeholders from the very beginning in Fall of 2000. Tremendous
energy was evident during the November 2003 BBSI grantee meeting from
all the participating institutions demonstrating the enthusiasm of the
teams working at these Institutes. Research programs in which the
students participated appeared to be at the state of the art of their
fields including bioinformatics, computational biology, multiscale
biological visualization, biomaterials, bioMEMS, biomedical optics, and
nanobioengineering.

In the nine BBSI Institutes, a total of 128 students were trained during
the first year of these grants (Summer 2003). Unfortunately, due to
popularity of the program over 75% of the applicants to the programs
could not be admitted (less than 25% overall acceptance rate). Of the
accepted students about 75% were undergraduate and 25% were graduate
students.

About 40% of the accepted students were female and about 11% of the
students who reported were from underrepresented minorities.

It was required by the solicitation that half of the participating
students be recruited from outside the host university. For the overall
BBSI program in it first year, over 70% of participants were from
outside their host institution.

An average of 14 faculty from an average of seven different departments
participated in the various Institutes demonstrating the
interdisciplinary character of the program as well as high faculty
involvement with an average of almost 1-to-1 faculty-student ratio.

A joint NIH-NSF website (
[http://bbsi.eeicom.com](http://bbsi.eeicom.com/) ) pooling the
information from all participating institutions served as an excellent
hub of information for students, awardee universities, as well for NIH
and NSF personnel. Currently all the presentations from the latest
grantee meeting, held at NIH on Nov. 4, 2003, can be accessed from this
site.

*How did the program partner with entities outside of EEC?*

The program was a multi-directorate and interagency activity from the
very start. A joint NIH-NSF working group to focus on Bioengineering and
Bioinformatics Research Training and Education needs was organized in
Fall 2000. Five NSF directorates (BIO, CISE, EHR, ENG, and MPS) and two
Institutes at NIH (NIBIB and NHGRI) coordinated this activity. The
agencies worked closely together on every aspect of the program
development. A workshop was held in Summer 2001 the final report for
which is found at the following link:
<http://www.becon.nih.gov/NSFNIHFinalReport824.pdf> . BBSI is the first
joint outcome based on the recommendations of that workshop.

*What changed during the three years or what will we do differently in
the future and why?*

Because BBSI is a relatively new program, initiated in September 2002,
and outcomes are now being reviewed, changes are not recommended at this
time.

[Information on issues of new solicitations and guidelines]{.underline}

Due to early success of the program, interest has been expressed from
NIH for continuation of this program through a new BBSI solicitation. No
explicit plans have been made at the present time.

[Methods of merit review used]{.underline}

All BBSI proposals were reviewed by external peer reviewers using the
NSF Fastlane Interactive Panel System. NSF and NIH Program Directors
worked together in identifying reviewers and assembling the panel that
reviewed the proposals.

[Nuggets]{.underline}

[**http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7667**](http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7667)

0234082, Dr. Martine LaBerge, Clemson University, Bioengineering Summer
Institute in Biomaterials Science and Engineering at Clemson University

0234002, Dr. Ivet Bahar, University of Pittsburgh, BBSI on Simulation
and Computer Visualization of Biological Systems at Multiple Scales

0234129, Dr. Jamil Momand, California State University at Los Angeles,
Southern California Bioinformatics Summer Institute

**Report on Combined Research and Curriculum Development (CRCD)**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

*Why does the program exist?*

The Combined Research-Curriculum Development (CRCD) Program, a joint
initiative of the Directorate for Engineering (ENG) and the Directorate
for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), supports
multidisciplinary projects that integrate new, state-of-the-art research
advances in emerging technology areas into upper level undergraduate and
introductory graduate engineering and computer and information science
and engineering curricula. Projects address a need for innovative
curricula, courses, textbooks, instructional modules and instructional
laboratories by integrating the research and education interests of
faculty through involvement in curriculum change. The CRCD program seeks
to closely engage faculty researchers, with support of academic
administration and industry, in curriculum innovation in the context
that education and research are of equal value and complementary parts
of an integrative engineering and science education enterprise. CRCD
projects also provide national leadership for developing new models of
learning and innovative teaching environments; incorporate learning
theory and cognitive sciences research that promotes student-based
learning styles and integrate their education and research roles; stress
active, collaborative learning with less dependence on lectures; utilize
emerging information technologies and network communications; develop
students\' capabilities and motivation to engage in lifelong learning;
and prepare engineering and computer and information science students to
perform in a rapidly changing, increasingly competitive and global,
industrial
environment.                                                            

(Please note that the CRCD program was discontinued in FY 2003 in the
ENG Directorate, however the CISE Directorate continues to solicit CRCD
proposals in the research topic areas supported by its programs.)

*What is the strategy of the program to achieve its objectives?*

In order to achieve program objectives proposals submitted to the CRCD
Program during this reporting period were required to focus on a
particular topic of industrial and national importance in a research
area supported by either ENG or CISE, such as nanoscale science and
engineering, information technology research, biotechnology and optical
and wireless communications and networking technologies, etc.

In addition, multi-institution and multi-disciplinary participation were
strongly encouraged in order to both expand the range of expertise in
curriculum development and the impact of dissemination. Participation of
undergraduate and graduate students, experts in educational
methodologies and pedagogy, instructional design/technology and the
active involvement of industrial participants were required components
of a CRCD project.

One of the key elements of the CRCD Program has been the involvement and
support of all ENG Divisions and CISE in all aspects of program
management. Since its inception in 1991, CRCD program funds managed by
the EEC Division have been generously augmented through co-funding
provided by other ENG Divisions and CISE for CRCD projects in emerging
technology areas supported by their programs. Specifically, in the FY
2001-2003 reporting period the EEC Division provided approximately
\$2.7M per year to the CRCD Program and participating Divisions and CISE
provided \$3.0M per year.

*How do the elements of the program (if multiple) tie together?*

Not applicable.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

The CRCD program is a unique program in NSF in that it provides the
opportunity and resources for faculty in research areas supported by ENG
and CISE to conduct research on an emerging technology area and
incorporate those research findings into curriculum modules, courses,
curriculum in their departments. In addition, the CRCD program not only
requires a statement from industry participants regarding the importance
of the project's technology area and its impact on U.S. industrial
competitiveness but also strong industry commitment and participation
throughout the award period. CRCD focuses on providing support for
curriculum development at the upper level undergraduate and graduate
level, which is not supported by the curriculum development programs in
the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR). For example,
the EHR Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) Program
only provides support for curriculum development activities at the first
and second years of the undergraduate level.

# *How did the program partner with entities outside EEC?*

The CRCD program is a joint program between the ENG and CISE
Directorates. To accomplish the management and programmatic goals of the
program a working group with representation from every division of ENG
and a member from CISE assisted in providing technical management of the
CRCD Program awards while the EEC Program Manager provided overall
administrative and technical management of the program.

Throughout its history the CRCD program has enjoyed generous co-funding
from CISE, all ENG Divisions and EPSCoR, allowing the program to double
the number of proposals that it would otherwise have supported with EEC
funds alone.

# *What worked particularly well and how do we know?*

The CRCD program has provided funding for the development of many new
and innovative courses, curricula, modules etc. and has been an
excellent way to foster collaboration across departments, universities,
and internationally. It has also encouraged teamwork amongst the
students, and helped to develop new, exciting, and relevant ways to
teach engineering. An excellent example of this collaboration can be
found at:
<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7703>,
0196303, Dr. Joe Cecil, New Mexico State University

*What changed during the 3 years or what will we do differently in the
future and why?*

Most of the CRCD projects funded during the reporting period were in
emerging technology areas supported by both CISE and ENG.

The funding emphasis of the Directorate for Engineering and the EEC
Division as to the level and type of curriculum development projects,
which would be supported, changed in FY 2003. It was decided that EEC
curriculum reform investments would have a broader impact if they
focused on departmental level reform. It was felt that since CRCD
concentrates on developing/modifying elective courses in the upper
division, progress toward their incorporation into the academic core was
slow because they were individual efforts. Therefore, resources
previously supporting CRCD were deployed to the Departmental Level
Reform Program where innovation in the entire undergraduate curriculum,
with emphasis on the core and improving the learning environment, could
be more effectively and quickly accomplished.

#  

# [Information on issuance of new solicitations and guidelines]{.underline}

None.

### Methods of merit review used

All CRCD proposals were reviewed using the Fastlane Interactive Panel
System.

### Nuggets

Research-Based Electromagnetics-Circuits Curriculum for Giga-Scale
Microelectronics

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7733>

0203518, Dr. Vikram Jandyhala, University of Washington

Real Time Embedded Systems Research and Curriculum

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7746>

9980321, Dr. Mitch Neilsen, Kansas State University

Chemicals from Biorenewables

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7920>

0087696, Dr. Charles Glatz, Iowa State University

**Report on Bridges for Engineering Education (BEE)**

**Program Activities, FY 2001-FY 2003**

**FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers**

######## Committee of Visitors

*Why does the program exist?*

The Bridges for Engineering Education (BEE) Program was started in FY
2002 in response to the IEEE Deans Summit in Baltimore. The Summit
brought together 46 pairs of Deans of Engineering and Education to plan
joint programs for improving the engineering exposure of education
majors and pedagogy of engineering faculty.

*What is the strategy of the program to achieve its objectives?*

The program awarded a total of approximately 40 \$100K, one year
planning grants in FY 2002 and FY 2003 to projects endorsed by both
Deans of Engineering and Deans of Education. Projects were to improve
the engineering content of the programs of education majors and
graduates or pedagogy in engineering schools, or both. While most
projects are in the first category, it is hoped that engineering faculty
will gain respect for and learn from their education faculty colleagues
when working together with them.

*How do the elements of the program (if multiple) tie together?*

An explicit plan for collaboration between faculty from a School of
Engineering and a School of Education is required.

*How does the strategy connect the program to and fill gaps left by
other NSF programs?*

NSF provides very few opportunities for engineering faculty to obtain
support for efforts to improve the engineering content of K-12
education. In fact, the BEE program was suspended in FY 2004 for a
number of reasons attributable in large part to the absence of a
mechanism at NSF to fund follow-on proposals. Unfortunately, the
resources available to the BEE program were too modest to achieve
meaningful results, generating promising starts by enthusiastic faculty
with nowhere to go. It had been hoped that NSF's Math and Science
Partnership Program (MSP, <https://www.ehr.nsf.gov/msp/>) would provide
a suitable source for implementation funds, but this very large program
proved to be too ambitious a step up from a \$100K planning grant.

# *How did the program partner with entities outside EEC?*

The review panels are managed with the help of program officers from the
Division of Elementary, Secondary, and Informal Education of the
Directorate for Education and Human Resources. We work as a team to
enlist reviewers and recommend proposals. As a result, the program
benefits from their knowledge of and contacts in education schools and
ESIE and EEC program officers have the opportunity to learn about each
other's fields of expertise.

# *What worked particularly well and how do we know?*

This short-lived program was a learning experience and a catalyst for an
exploration of the role of engineering education in K-12. The Division
Director of ESIE has raised the question of whether engineering, and
engineering design in particular, might not provide a means of
integrating math, science, reading, and social studies education at the
precollege level. The impetus for such a change is that there is not
currently enough time for individual high-stakes instruction in each
area, necessitating some kind of integrated approach.

*What changed during the 3 years or what will we do differently in the
future and why?*

Too soon to tell what follow-on programs may result.

#  

# [Information on issuance of new solicitations and guidelines]{.underline}

None.

### Methods of merit review used

All BEE proposals were reviewed using the Fastlane Interactive Panel
System.

### Nuggets

A Model for Introducing Engineering Concepts to High School Students

<http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7646>

0229441, Dr. Robert Wicklein , University of Georgia

Design, Engineering, and Technology (DET) Expansion for K-12 Teachers

[http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7775](http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7775%0D)

[0230726, Dr. Peter Crouch, Arizona State
University](http://www.inside.nsf.gov/gpra_nuggets/index_nugget.cfm?ngt_id=7775%0D)

**Supplementary Information on the Math and Science Partnership Program
of the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR)**

## FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers

######## Committee of Visitors

[Summary]{.underline}

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program is a response to the poor
performance of U.S. children in mathematics and science and seeks to
build on the Nation\'s dedication to improve education in these areas.
Through support of partnerships between local school districts and
faculties of colleges and universities \-- especially disciplinary
faculties in mathematics, science, and engineering \-- and with other
stakeholders, MSP seeks to improve student outcomes in mathematics and
science for all students, at all K-12 levels. In detail, MSP seeks to:

-   Stimulate partnerships among K-12 teachers and administrators, and
    higher education mathematics, science and engineering faculty, and
    administrators;

-   Ensure that K-12 students are prepared for, have access to, and are
    encouraged to participate and succeed in, challenging mathematics
    and science courses and curricula;

-   Enhance the number, quality and diversity of K-12 teachers of
    mathematics and science;

-   Develop evidence-based outcomes that contribute to our understanding
    of how students effectively learn mathematics and science, and

-   Stimulate well-documented, inclusive and coordinated institutional
    change in both colleges and universities, and in local school
    districts to support improved student outcomes in mathematics and
    science.

To achieve these goals, the MSP program supports Comprehensive and
Targeted (C&T) projects, as well as an integrated set of research,
evaluation, and technical assistance (RETA) projects. These and other
MSP-funded projects constitute the MSP Learning Network, which is
expected to contribute to a stronger knowledge base for educational
reform; support the development of a culture of evidence throughout the
MSP program; strengthen the integration of research and practice; and
contribute to the Nation\'s capacity to engage in, support, and
understand large-scale education innovation.

The MSP RETA projects are intended to enhance the capacity of the MSP
C&T projects to achieve their goals and to contribute to the development
and dissemination of the knowledge base necessary to achieve sustained
educational reform. MSP RETA accomplishes its purpose through:

-   Theoretically informed, methodologically rigorous projects that
    contribute to the understanding of the processes that support
    continuous improvement of K-12 mathematics and science teaching and
    learning by using the MSP C&T projects as research sites;

-   Rigorous, innovative evaluation projects that develop new models and
    tools for documenting, assessing and assisting MSP C&T projects\'
    progress toward their goals; and

-   Technical assistance projects that build on a strong research base
    and that develop, implement and evaluate both (a) models of support
    and (b) tools for the MSP projects, particularly in the use of
    research and data.

The RETA proposals focused on the five Key Features integral to all MSP
C&T projects: (1) Teacher Quantity, Quality, and Diversity; (2)
Challenging Courses and Curricula; (3) Institutional Change and
Sustainability; (4) Partnership-Driven; and (5) Evidence-Based Design
and Outcomes.

This program is distinctive from other NSF programs on science and math
education in that the mathematics, science and engineering faculty and
their organizations are expected to play a major role in the MSP
projects. In addition, in includes the commitment to identified
institutional change in both the higher education and school district
partners. Finally, the MSP program is a collaborative learning
laboratory in which the MSP sites will contribute to our understanding
of how to prepare and support teachers who can inspire and challenge
their students and how to serve all students well.

The Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) administers the
MSP program in partnership with the Department of Education, which has a
similar legislative mandate for the MSP program.

In late 2002, NSF announced 24 awards under the MSP program - an
anticipated investment of \$240 million over five years - in projects to
improve the achievement of K-12 students in science and mathematics. The
Department of Education (ED) is an NSF partner in this effort,
co-funding two projects involving state education agencies. Among the
awards were 7 comprehensive awards with c. \$147 million over five years
affecting about 1.8 million students in 11 states. In addition, 17 of
the awards were targeted partnership grants. They total about \$90
million over five years and will affect about 200 school districts and
some 600,000 pre-K through grade 12 students in 11 states.

In late 2003, NSF announced \$216.3 million in funding for the second
year of the MSP. The awards will directly impact at least 2.85 million
students nationwide and in Puerto Rico who learn in urban, rural,
suburban and tribal nation schools. This year\'s MSP funding comes in
four forms: comprehensive awards (5 awards for a total of \$456 million,
1.1 million students), targeted awards (7 awards for a total of \$68.2
million, 320,000 students); research, evaluation and technical
assistance awards (10 awards for a total of \$23.5 million), and a
Prototype Institute Partnership award (with a budget of \$5.5 million),
which places emphasis on improving middle and high school mathematics by
emphasizing the development of school-based intellectual leaders and
master teachers.

In the Omnibus Appropriations Report for FY 2004, the Congress
appropriated \$140 million (without adjustments) for the MSP program.
The Committee report called the program "an important asset in providing
improved math and science education" and saw for an even larger funding
of \$145 million.

In the FY 2005 budget request, the administration has begun to phase out
NSF participation in the MSP program, in order for it to be
"consolidated in the Department of Education to concentrate attention
and resources in a single program". Funding of \$80 million will be used
to meet the commitments made in the first two years of the program and
for data collection and program evaluation.

[Nuggets]{.underline}

**Infrastructure for Measuring and Assessing Student Achievement in the
MSP**

In *Mathematical ACTS*, the University of California -- Riverside and
the Jurupa Unified School District have committed to raising student
achievement in grades 4-8 mathematics, and the project's Strategic Plan
offers a strong example of efforts to link outcomes on state assessments
with local testing and national norm-referenced examinations. The Jurupa
Unified School District has a high minority (64%) population with 52%
qualifying for free lunches. As one indicator of low student
achievement, on recently administered, nationally-normed SAT9
mathematics assessments, only 38% of Jurupa Hispanic students and 33% of
African American students scored at or above the 50th percentile.
*Mathematical ACTS* has developed a variety of strategies to
significantly increase this level of performance, at a district-wide
level and among disaggregated student populations, on:\
\
(a) CSTs \-- California's measure of its state standards that are meant
to measure mastery. *Mathematical ACTS* expects to see 4% improvement
per year per proficiency level.\
\
(b) CRTs \-- Jurupa Unified School District's Criterion-Referenced Test
that measures the district's "power standards." *Mathematical ACTS*
expects to see a 4%/year improvement.\
\
(c) CAT6 \-- linked to the previous SAT9, now California's national
norm-referenced test that measures general mathematics knowledge and
skill. *Mathematical ACTS* expects to see improvement of 3 percentiles
per year.\
\
By improving student readiness for advanced study, *Mathematical ACTS*
expects significant improvement of current student outcomes in
mathematics courses (e.g., only 35% of Jurupa Hispanic students who are
not on free lunch successfully complete 9th grade Algebra; only 5% of
White students who are on free lunch successfully complete this
course).\
\
Through the *El Paso Math and Science Partnership*, 12 school districts
in the El Paso region, the University of Texas -- El Paso (UTEP), and
the El Paso Community College (EPCC) have committed to increased student
participation and success in mathematics and science courses, thus
building the capacity of area schools to prepare all students for
college and increase the number of STEM majors. In the heavily Hispanic
(78% of the population) region of El Paso, a prior UTEP partnership
demonstrated significant gains in student achievement on Texas state
assessments. Still, baseline data available at the time of proposal
submission for the *El Paso MSP* indicate that only 39% of students
passed Algebra I end-of-course examinations; that 43% of students
entering UTEP and 75% of students entering EPCC required remediation in
mathematics; and that 53% and 61% of students successfully completed
entry-level mathematics and chemistry courses, respectively, at UTEP.
The *El Paso MSP*, then, has articulated a number of strategies meant to
drastically change such outcomes with specified goals. For example, by
year 3 of the MSP, at least 75% of high school graduates from the
partner school districts are expected to have completed the Texas's
Recommended High School Program and, by year 5, 100% of area students
will be enrolled in college-preparatory mathematics and science courses.
For individual courses, the *El Paso MSP* has clear benchmarks such as
for Geometry in which, by year 4, all students will enroll in a newly
revised course, fully aligned with state and national standards, and 85%
will pass the course. As students participate and succeed in more
rigorous high school courses, the partnership expects that the percent
of El Paso area high school graduates entering Texas public institutions
of higher education will require less remediation and has established a
goal that, by year 5, 80% of partnership students entering UTEP and 70%
of those entering EPCC will successfully test into college-level
mathematics courses.

*This work is notable because:*\
Through an analysis of Strategic Plans required of all awardees, the MSP
program has demonstrated that, even in the first of work, each
partnership has developed the infrastructure to measure student
achievement. The MSPs have identified baseline data on a variety of
assessments and mathematics and science course-taking patterns, and
produced clear expectations of improvement in student outcomes that can
be measured annually against benchmarks and long-term against summative
goals.

Program Officer: James Hamos

NSF Award Numbers:

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ----------------------------------------------
  [0226948](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0226948)       

  Award Title:                                                                  Mathematical ACTS

  PI Name:                                                                      Richard Cardullo

  Institution Name:                                                             University of California-Riverside
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ----------------------------------------------

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -----------------------------------------------
  [0227124](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0227124)       

  Award Title:                                                                  El Paso Math and Science Partnership

  PI Name:                                                                      Susana Navarro

  Institution Name:                                                             University of Texas at El Paso
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -----------------------------------------------

**MSP engages university faculty in mathematics, science and engineering
in substantive and multiples roles in K-12 STEM education**

A major expectation of the Math and Science Partnership program is that
disciplinary faculty in departments of mathematics, the sciences and/or
engineering will partner with education faculty and administrators in
higher education partner organizations and administrators, teachers of
mathematics and the sciences and guidance counselors in K-12 partner
organizations in efforts to effect deep, lasting improvement in K-12
mathematics and science education.\
\
Through the *El Paso Math and Science Partnership*, educators from the
Colleges of Science and Education, as well as researchers from the
Center for Research on Educational Reform based at the University of
Texas at El Paso (UTEP) have come together with colleagues at El Paso
Community College in a shared determination to improve the quantity and
quality of mathematics and science teachers in twelve school districts
of the El Paso region. After learning more about efforts to improve
mathematics and science teaching and learning, groups of cross-college
faculty and researchers are now teaching preservice and inservice
mathematics and science teachers, undertaking joint research projects,
and engaging classroom teachers in action research. An example of a
first year outcome of the *El Paso MSP* has come from the K-16 Working
Group, a team of K-12 teachers and college/university faculty who have
revised the regional Algebra II curriculum framework and completed
drafts of Algebra I and K-8 Mathematics Curriculum Frameworks. The
mathematics content in these documents was mapped to cognitive demands
as well as to state and national standards. Subsequently, a Mathematics
Assessment Group is developing an Algebra II test that is aimed at
measuring the readiness of students to enter college level mathematics
without having to take remedial mathematics courses.\
\
Some MSP projects seek to have broader impacts than the local context
with school district partners. For example, a goal of the *Texas Middle
and Secondary Mathematics Project* is to improve the awareness and
involvement of mathematics higher education faculty regarding the
preparation and professional development of teachers, especially
incorporating recommendations of the Conference Board of the
Mathematical Sciences' volumes on "The Mathematical Education of
Teachers." To this end, mathematicians and mathematics educators at
Stephen F. Austin State University, the lead institution of the *Texas
Middle and Secondary Mathematics Project*, have begun to create
opportunities for university mathematics faculty development by having
faculty from Abilene Christian University, Baylor University, Midwestern
University, Sam Houston State and the University of Texas at Tyler (all
institutions outside of the partnership) observe project development and
help teachers from participating school districts with their content
difficulties through mentoring relationships. These mentor faculty and
project faculty also participate in team teaching activities and
together study standards for becoming a Master Mathematics Teacher,
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills objectives, National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics standards, "The Mathematical Education of
Teachers" documents, and K-12 mathematics curricula. The project is
developing metrics to demonstrate long-term change in the teacher
preparation and teacher professional development programs of these
collaborating universities.\
\
The MSP effort also enables higher education faculty members to become
intimately involved with single schools that are part of a partnership.
In the *Stark County Math and Science Partnership*, college professors
from five local colleges and universities partner with individual
schools within the partnership's four urban school districts. For
example, an Instructor at Stark State College of Technology, a community
college in Canton (OH), has worked exclusively with 6th grade
mathematics, science and special education teachers at a middle school
in the Canton City Schools by co-teaching classes, analyzing student
data and developing intervention strategies. An outcome of this MSP
college/school partnership has been that students in this community
outscored all other 6th grade school communities by more than 10
percentage points on the district\'s common assessments.

*This work is notable because:*\
Higher education faculty are not only major contributors to MSP projects
but significant learners as they seek to devise, with their K-12
colleagues, new means to improve student achievement and increase
student participation in mathematics, science and engineering careers.

Program Officer: James Hamos

NSF Award Numbers:

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -----------------------------------------------
  [0227124](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0227124)       

  Award Title:                                                                  El Paso Math and Science Partnership

  PI Name:                                                                      Susana Navarro

  Institution Name:                                                             University of Texas at El Paso
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -----------------------------------------------

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ---------------------------------------------------
  [0227128](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0227128)       

  Award Title:                                                                  Texas Middle and Secondary Mathematics Project

  PI Name:                                                                      Jasper Adams

  Institution Name:                                                             Stephen F. Austin State University
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ---------------------------------------------------

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -------------------------------------------------
  [0226986](https://www.fastlane.nsf.gov/servlet/showaward?award=0226986)       

  Award Title:                                                                  Stark County Math and Science Partnership

  PI Name:                                                                      Robert Bayer

  Institution Name:                                                             Stark County Educational Service Center
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- -------------------------------------------------

**Information on Projects Supported by the**

**Information Technology Research Program**

## FY 2004 Division of Engineering Education and Centers

Committee of Visitors

# [Summary]{.underline}

In its first year, FY2000, the ITR program stressed fundamental research
in IT. More recently, the program has been broadened considerably to
include applications of IT in all scientific, engineering and
educational areas. In FY2002 and FY2003, the EEC Division co-funded one
award each in areas related to education. They are as follows.

0326309 PI. Esche, Stevens Institute of Technology

Title: An Infrastructure for Designing and Conducting Remote
Laboratories

This study deals with the extension of the idea of remote laboratories
(based on actual physical devices and/or pure simulation) through the
use of information technology along several dimensions. This project
seeks to create standardized laboratory, experiment, device and
simulation descriptions so that students can (i) run experiments that
may involve multiple devices in different laboratories at various
locations, (ii) perform collaborative experiments with multiple
participants, and (iii) combine experiments and simulations into one
integrated laboratory experience. To establish an interface to support
both physical and simulated laboratory activities, various cognitive and
instructional design issues are being explored. It is hypothesized that
the efficacy of remote laboratories will be dependent upon the extent to
which the user interface aids the student in creating mental models of
both the problem domain and the experimental

structure. As part of our research, the investigators will create
alternative interfaces and evaluate them for pedagogical efficacy.
Through standardization, the education and research communities will be
able to share laboratory facilities, enabling wider and faster access to
laboratories than at the present time. The project will involve
significant percentages of ethnic minority and female students and has
the potential to lead to the widespread adoption of remote laboratories
as a means for improving student

learning of difficult engineering concepts. Furthermore, the technology
challenges of creating a framework for remote laboratories are simpler
than, but analogous to other scientific and industrial problems. Success
in this particular domain may suggest techniques that can be applied for
sharing other sensor and actuator networks in a wide range of
applications.

[Outcomes (as communicated by the PIs)]{.underline}

People

The project\'s intention is to have a large impact on the development of
the engineering workforce through improved education. Specifically, we
are seeking to understand better the effectiveness of different forms of
laboratories in undergraduate engineering education. Once we understand
what works, we want to use this knowledge to increase the educational
effectiveness of our classes. We have built new laboratory technologies,
taught with them, performed tests, gathered data, and begun analysis -
all in the first 4 months of the grant.

Ideas

We have built a model for comparing remote laboratories with hands-on
laboratories and simulation. There is a long-standing debate between
advocates of hands-on labs versus simulated labs, but to date no
cientific comparisons have been made. The potential comparisons are more
interesting when remote labs are introduced - for remote labs are
cost-effective, as simulations are - but also produce real data, one of
the advantages of hands-on labs. Our model, developed over the last four
months, and grounded in preliminary experiments and several streams of
literature, looks at not only the different forms of laboratories\'
effects on educational effectiveness, but also the effects of alternate
user interfaces. For the interface which improves results on a remote
lab might also improve results on a simulation - and if it doesn\'t, we
learn something about the virtues of

real data over simulated. We have written two papers and plan on
presenting the model in two upcoming conferences - CHI and FIE - in
order to disseminate our results and learn from peer review.

Tools

To date, remote laboratory vibration experiments have been customized
and used in undergraduate mechanical engineering classes. In addition to
this educational equipment, assessment tools and specially tailored test
questions have been created in order to test our hypotheses on the
relative educational effectiveness of different labs and their
corresponding interfaces. From the results of our first experiments we
intend to build more remote laboratory experimental apparatus that will
help us understand the roles of both experiment complexity and
tele-presence on student\'s capacity to understand and generalize
experimental results.

## 0205301; PI: Corbett, Carnegie Mellon University

0205506; PI.: Chi - U of Pittsburgh

Title: Putting a Face on Cognitive Tutors: Bringing Active Inquiry into
Active Problem Solving

K-12 mathematics and science education is shifting from teacher-centered
.learning-by-listening to student-centered .learning-by-doing.. However,
the individual attention that students require to learn with maximum
efficiency is necessarily still lacking in classrooms of 20-30 students.
While the peer support afforded by small-group problem solving is
effective, it is less effective than the individualized support provided
by the best human tutors. This project is building and evaluating an
educational technology that addresses this classroom need. The project
is building on a growing body of research regarding effective learning
and tutoring strategies. It is integrating a state-of-the art
educational technology called Cognitive Tutors with a novel interactive
questioning environment called Synthetic Interviews to develop an active
learning environment that rivals the effectiveness of human tutors. This
project is building an active learning environment combining the
framework and benefits of active problem solving through Cognitive
Tutors with the scaffolding support of active inquiry through Synthetic
interviews. Such an environment will support the acquisition of
conceptual knowledge and its application to problem solving, engaging
students in interactive .learning-by-talking episodes and enabling and
promoting active student questioning and metacognitive skills.

[Outcomes (as communicated by the PIs)]{.underline}

People

Six Carnegie Mellon faculty members are supervising various aspects of
the project, including Albert Corbett (PI), Ken Koedinger, Scott
Stevens, Brady Myers (co-investigators) Mike Christel and Alex Hauptman
(senior personnel). Two programmers, Harry Ulrich and Chang Chang and a
staff research associate, Sharon Lesgold are working on the project
along with four students, Lisa Anthony (Ph D student), Angela Wagner
(Masters student and staff research associate), Jane Kamneva and Nick
Gammell (undergraduates). In a collaborative grant at the University of
Pittsburgh, Micki Chi (faculty), Robert Hausman (graduate student) and
Marguerite Roy (post doc/research associate) are conducting empirical
studies of effective human tutoring to guide ALPS interactions with
students.

Ideas

This project is building and evaluating an "active learning" problem
solving (ALPS) environment. K-12 mathematics and science education is
shifting from teacher-centered "learning-by-listening" to
student-centered "learning-by-doing." Carnegie Mellon's Cognitive Tutor
technology has proven very successful in supporting
problem-solving-based learning and cognitive tutor math courses are in
use in about 1700 high schools and middle schools and by about 170,000
students around the country this year. The goal of this project is to
put a "human face" on cognitive tutors by integrating an active
question-and-answer technology called Synthetic Interviews. Synthetic
Interviews permit the student to ask natural language questions during
problem solving and can enable students to engage in the help-seeking
and metacognitive skills that characterize active learners.

In an initial Wizard of Oz study, middle school students solved
cognitive tutor math problems and a human expert simulated the Synthetic
Interview capabilities. This study established the basic feasibility of
the ALPS environment. Most importantly, students' rate of asking
questions during problem solving approached the rates observed in
one-on-one human tutoring. These student questions are used to seed the
questions-and-answer database in the initial ALPS environment. The study
also confirmed the need to scaffold students' use of the active
questioning opportunity in ALPS. Students' questions in this study
focused primarily on what to do next, rather than on developing a deeper
conceptual understanding of the problem solution steps, that in turn can
lead to greater retention and transfer. An algebra lesson in the initial
ALPS environment is currently being piloted in middle school classrooms.

Tools

The project integrates cognitive tutor and synthetic interview
technology. Cognitive tutors are intelligent problem solving
environments that are constructed around detailed cognitive models of
the ways that students solve problems. The cognitive model permits the
tutor to provide step-by-step accuracy feedback as the student works and
to provide problem-solving advice upon request of the student. Synthetic
Interviews simulate dialogues, permitting users to type questions in a
conversational manner and responding with video of a person answering
the questions. Synthetic Interviews map user questions to video answers
via a TFIDF (term-frequency, inverse document frequency) statistical
algorithm.

The Synthetic Interview database consists of sets of question variations
(varying in surface form) that map onto canonical answers. We have
developed a database of about 225 canonical answers to Algebra questions
to date. We are empirically examining the optimal structure for
Synthetic Interview databases (e.g., examining the quantitative form of
the relationship between the number of surface question variations per
canonical answer and retrieval accuracy) and developing tools to manage
the database more efficiently (e.g., question editing, automatic
generation of surface variations, and quality assurance). Based on
current classroom piloting, we will begin examining how to use
problem-solving context information in the cognitive tutor to further
disambiguate students' Synthetic Interview questions.

[^1]: Dr. Rastegar was recommended as a permanent ERC PD in FY 2002 but
    he had to leave the Foundation's employment for one year due to IPA
    restrictions. He returned to NSF in November 2003.